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Global Voices: We need to change how we talk about suicidehttp://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-we-need-to-change-how-we-talk-about-suicide
http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-we-need-to-change-how-we-talk-about-suicide#respondWed, 21 Feb 2018 22:08:18 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766875Before we met the Elkington family, we didn’t often think about suicide.

We’ve spoken with educators and parents across the country who are concerned about the growing mental health crisis among young Canadians. We’ve grappled with how to do our part to ensure more people get help. But before speaking with Bill and Sabrina, suicide itself was something we only glimpsed.

Newspapers are justifiably reluctant to publish stories lest they encourage copycats. Coverage is usually limited to articles about veterans with PTSD or Indigenous communities dealing with generations-old trauma.

We weren’t getting the full picture. And the way we talked about suicide had been all wrong.

Two years ago, the Elkington’s 29-year-old daughter Erika died by suicide. There was a time we would have said she committed suicide, a word usually reserved for criminality.

“But the language around suicide is entirely off base,” Bill taught us. “No one commits anything.”

There was nothing illegal in her actions. We don’t say people committed depression or eating disorders. They don’t commit heart disease. Our words about suicide implied a justified guilt, blaming a sick person for inflicting trauma on their family.

Erika was a bright young woman with an MBA. She spoke three languages and swam competitively. She does not deserve judgement.

Every year, over nine million people across North America think about suicide while one million people attempt it. Fifty thousand die.

Every year, over nine million people across North America think about suicide while one million people attempt it.

They are dying from depression and a chemical imbalance in the brain. They are dying from despair, from anxiety and from mental illness. These are among the leading causes of death in Canada — we just call it suicide.

Language matters, and the words we use to talk about suicide matter more than most. They can force people to feel like they suffer alone; alternatively, they can drag the issues underlying suicide into the light.

In the years before the Elkingtons lost Erika, Bill had attended several funerals for people who’d died by suicide. At the services, no one spoke of it. When someone dies from cancer, we talk about the terrible disease and the brave person fighting it. When someone dies from suicide, we are silent, unsure what to say.

During Erika’s celebration of life, Bill didn’t stay silent. He told the more than one thousand people gathered to ask their loved ones if they’d ever struggled with mental illness or thought of hurting themselves. Calls soon flooded Bill’s phone. His friends and family were shocked that those thoughts percolated in their sons and daughters, wives and husbands.

With that knowledge comes the ability to offer help.

“Erika was always there to help others,” Bill told us, the grief still afflicting his voice. Now the family is doing the same with the Erika Legacy Foundation. “We can’t change what happened, but we can help make sure it doesn’t happen to others and we can use Erika’s legacy to make a difference.”

It starts with language. Have that tough conversation with loved ones about mental health. It’s something we can all do to honour Erika and prevent others from dying by suicide.

Our words are something we can all control.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of the WE movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

When we told people we were going to Haiti for family holidays last summer, we were inevitably met with barely disguised looks of shock and incomprehension. On more than one occasion we were greeted with a pause, followed by: “Did you say ‘Ta-hiti?’”

Perhaps understandable given the Caribbean nation’s history of political upheaval and natural disasters, the reaction, however, is both unfortunate and unfair. In our three weeks traversing Haiti with our sons, age 11 and 14, we discovered a fascinating island of white-sand beaches, safe and picturesque colonial era-cities, stunning hiking trails through mountain ranges and warm and gracious people.

The only country borne of a slave revolution, Haiti has a rich history to explore as well. As it works to lift itself from poverty and its reputation as a sub-par nation, recently reinforced by the ignorant comments of a sub-par president, vacationing there is a wonderful opportunity to enrich both country and traveller.

I travelled there with my parents as a 14-year-old, and left with memories of a poor but captivatingly beautiful place where locals shared the little they had and smiled often. I remembered, in particular, an older woman who made room on her lap so our family could squeeze onto an overcrowded bus. It was the type of experience we wanted to share with our sons.

Our voyage started in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s teeming capital of two million people. The rubble and tent cities of the 2010 earthquake are gone but poverty remains, evidenced by curbside vendors eking out a living selling fried plantain and plastic bags of drinking water, while skinny boys wearing rags wipe the dust from idling cars and beg for coins.

Leaving the home of friends Sonide and Nickel, we clambered into a crowded tap-tap, the often brightly painted covered pickup trucks used for public transit throughout Haiti. In the 30 C heat, it inched and honked its way through the traffic jams that plague Port-au-Prince for the 20-minute ride to the National Pantheon Museum downtown. The displays gave a succinct and brutal history of the arrival of first Spanish and then French colonists who used African slaves to harvest sugar and coffee and make it the richest colony in the world.

A man carries his wares to market near the Parc National la Visite in Haiti. [René Bruemmer]

Napoleon Bonaparte sent 40,000 troops to quell the 13-year revolution, but the slave soldiers simply waited for the French to die of tropical diseases before defeating the decimated armies on the battlefield. On Jan. 1, 1804, the new nation of Haiti was proclaimed. The museum also has a gallery featuring many of Haiti’s renowned painters, considered among the best in the Caribbean.

At the enormous Marché de Fer marketplace nearby, we wandered through aisles of wood carvings and metalwork sculptures cut from oil barrels hammered flat. Stalls were packed with spices and fresh produce, hair products and Voodoo ornaments, but business was slow. In three weeks we came across only two other white families, and few foreign tourists other than Americans and Canadians of Haitian descent.

Like most large cities in developing countries, Port-au-Prince has neighbourhoods that are best avoided. But Haiti’s crime rate is much lower than in Dominican Republic or Jamaica, and crimes involving tourists are rare.

Moving on from the invigorating and exhausting clamour of the capital, we hired a driver and pickup truck to take us six hours north to the coastal city of Cap-Haïtien. (The trip can also be done in 30 minutes by plane).

“The road is very bad,” a Haitian friend said as we were about to leave. “I will pray for you.”

The mountain ranges and terraced hillsides of the Massif de la Selle in Haiti. [René Bruemmer]

Route Nationale 1 tracks the coast, running past beach resorts including a former Club Med that is now the all-inclusive Royal Decameron Indigo resort, hosting package tourists from Europe, Canada and the U.S.

The highway, which was mostly good, cut through fields of rice paddies and market villages, before it deteriorated into a potholed dirt road that switchbacked through the imposing Massif du Nord mountain range.

Once the richest city in the Carribean, Cap-Haïtien is a pleasantly laid-back and weathered oasis reminiscent of New Orleans, with ornate balconies wrapping around the upper stories of pastel-coloured buildings. It’s calm enough we could let the boys wander on their own.

By ourselves, we explored deserted cliff-side forts littered with cannons overlooking the sea, built by the French 300 years ago. In Haiti, one often feels far off the beaten path.

Then we went for a dip in the Atlantic before eating plates of freshly caught grilled fish with sauce, rice, cabbage and grilled plantain for about $10 each, washed down with Haiti’s excellent Prestige beer at a beachfront restaurant.

Nearby is the astounding Citadelle Henry, the largest fortress in the Americas, looming on a mountaintop 900 metres above sea level. It took 20,000 men 14 years to build, soon after Haiti gained its independence. A UNESCO World Heritage site and Haiti’s premiere tourist destination, the fort features 16-foot (5-metre), walls towering 20 storeys high, with 163 cannons that were never used, and sweeping views. Far below are the sad ruins of the King Henry Christophe’s grand Sans Souci Palace, once known as the Versailles of the Caribbean.

From Cap-Haïtien we took a dusty, bumpy ride south in the back of an open pickup truck with other Haitians, driving through the verdant plains and forests of the Central Plateau.

“The road is very bad,” a young man told us before we left. “I will pray for you.”

Navigating Haiti’s rural highways often necessitated an act of faith. The driver went out of his way to escort us to our hotel, a kindness we experienced repeatedly.

“The road is very bad,” a young man told us before we left. “I will pray for you.”

To reach Jacmel on the south coast, we did a self-guided hike through the Massif de la Selle, where mountains stretch to the horizon, walking a well-worn route used by villagers, many balancing heavy bags of produce on their heads. (Because it had proven successful, we asked our Haitian friend to pray for us before we left.)

We followed a ridge that plunged into steep valleys of green, farmers clinging to the hillsides to plant their crops in the rich red soil, looking up to smile and say “bonjou” as we passed. At the top we passed through misty pine forests, sharing the path with the occasional herd of sheep.

We stayed in a rustic lodge in the Parc National la Visite, sleeping under heavy blankets to ward off the chill. The next day we hiked past farmers’ fields and houses built of concrete blocks or of mud and thatch, down to the azure blue of the Caribbean Sea. We opted for motorcycle taxis and a tap-tap ride when we ran out of steam.

Catching waves with the help of the Haiti Surf school in Kabik, Haiti. [René Bruemmer]

In Jacmel, a seaside resort town famous for its artisans and raucous February Carnival, we visited the nearby Bassin Bleu, a series of three deep pools of luminous cobalt-blue hidden deep in the forest, where the boys leaped from mini-cliffs beside the waterfalls, a trip highlight.

After two weeks of fairly arduous travel we were ready for rest, and lucked into a rustic beach house on the sea in the village of Kabik, near Jacmal.

The final days lapsed into a beach existence of swimming, reading (a benefit of limited Internet access meant our boys discovered the joy of books), and eating grilled fish and lobster at restaurants featuring thatched roofs and sand floors. We took surf lessons from the young men with dyed blond hair who run the Surf Haiti school, then rented boards so we could try the gentle waves ourselves.

On the way back to Port-au-Prince, there wasn’t enough room for all of us on the tap-tap.

“Come,” a young Haitian woman with fashionably ripped jeans said to my youngest son. “You can sit on my lap.”

rbruemmer@postmedia.com

If you go:

We used the Haiti guidebook published by Bradt and written by Paul Clammer. Packed with maps, historical and cultural background and suggestions for hotels and restaurants for all budgets, it was an invaluable resource. Highly recommended. Available at Amazon.ca.

Hotels: For a developing country, lodging can be surprisingly expensive because hotels often cater to businesses or aid workers on expense accounts. We sometimes paid CDN$150 to $200 for a basic room. The guidebook has cheaper options. Airbnb is also becoming popular. For an all-inclusive taste, Air Transat offers one-week trips to the Royal Decameron Indigo beach resort for $1,300.

Food and health: Food is generally simple, inexpensive and tasty. Because tap water is polluted and cholera fears are high, the water and ice we were served was always treated. Travellers should have the necessary vaccinations, and malaria pills.

Money and phones: Credit cards are accepted widely, as is U.S. cash. The local currency, gourdes, can be withdrawn from ATM machines in large cities. Cell phones work, with data. Book an international plan with your carrier in advance.

Language: French is spoken widely; English in touristy areas. French and Haitian Creole are the two official languages

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan snag. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

MOVIES

Big releases Feb. 23: Annihilation; Game Night.

Big picture: You want to be excited about Annihilation. It’s from Alex Garland, the writer and director of Ex Machina (2015), one of the best sci-fi films of all-time. And it stars Natalie Portman, one of our finest actresses (when she isn’t reading off a script touched by George Lucas). She plays Lena, who ventures off into “the Shimmer,” an expanding, swirly rainbow wall that looks like the end of a kaleidoscope.

When she goes in search of answers to what happened to her soldier husband, what her team finds is Eden meets Lost meets Pan’s labyrinth … meets zero chance of Portman getting an Oscar nod. New species of animals, plants and bug — i.e. an alligator with shark’s teeth — run amok on the other side of the portal. It’s like Wonderland as created by the unlikely combination of Doctor Frankenstein and Noah from the Bible.

Meanwhile, Game Night stars Jason Bateman as Max and Rachel McAdams as Annie, leaders of an intense, weekly couples game night. They encounter an unexpected adventure when Kyle Chandler (i.e. Max’s brother) turns things up a notch with a murder-spy mystery that becomes the real thing. This one is from the minds behind Bachelor Party.

Forecast: “It’s not destroying, it’s making something new,” Portman says of the supernatural force known as the Shimmer. You’ll hope it’s not remaking her career trajectory. Game Night goes far beyond trivia and board games to deliver a real winning comedy. For the record, I would watch the charismatic Chandler (Friday Night Lights, Bloodline) host a stamp collector’s night.

Big picture: You can stop pretending to care about speedskating and luge soon. The Olympics wrap up on Feb. 25 with closing ceremonies from South Korea. In between, you can watch Game of Thrones’ Ned Stark with his head firmly in place hunt down a serial limb cutter. The Frankenstein Chronicles stars Sean Bean, Stark on GoT, as a 19th-century police officer investigating a “monster” at work after a “composite” corpse is found made up of the body parts of missing kids.

You guessed it: This one is inspired by Mary Shelley’s famous novel, and a fictionalized version of the author even appears. “The dead live. … This nightmare is your creation!” the copper accuses Shelley. (If Ned Stark is that upset with this, thank God he didn’t live to see the White Walkers back in Westeros.)

Meanwhile, Seven Seconds comes from the talented mind of Veena Sud (The Killing). This 10-episode series focuses on racial tensions and violence in New Jersey after an African-American teenager is critically wounded — and apparently left to die in the cold — by a white cop. Ripped from potential daily headlines, nothing is black and white in this one. One thing is true: it’s a battle between forces that want the truth buried and uncovered. And Sud has proven she can deliver a unique serialized crime drama.

Forecast: These two great dramas will be with you long after the week’s sporting drama has come to an end.

Big picture: It’s a mighty slow week, folks. The kind of week you may want to visit YouTube and upload the drunken, inexplicably pants-free “masterpiece” you recorded last week about “all those jerks (back in high school / in your office / in your family / in political office)” while simultaneously playing a ukulele, harmonica and bongo drum. Music-hungry web-traffickers need a fix, and you could find yourself Friday famous. (Remember Rebecca Black?)

LOS ANGELES — Director Ryan Coogler was still a student at the USC School of Cinematic Arts when he came to the attention of Forest Whitaker.

The young filmmaker arrived at Whitaker’s office to pitch ideas to the Oscar-winning actor and his producing partner, Nina Yang Bongiovi. One of them was based on the true story of a 22-year-old African-American shot by a white police officer on a subway platform. Whitaker and Bongiovi signed on as producers, helping Coogler develop it into his harrowing 2013 debut, Fruitvale Station.

“We decided to do it then, right on the spot,” says Whitaker in an interview promoting Coogler’s latest film, Black Panther. “I think it’s a real important film. It has a real strong social message in dealing with profiling, in dealing with young black males being killed by the police. There were so many different stories inside of it.”

Five years later, Whitaker accepted a supporting role in Black Panther, the latest mega-budgeted entry into the Marvel Universe that’s already being called a “history-making masterpiece” (Rolling Stone).

It was Coogler’s involvement that convinced Whitaker to play Zuri, spiritual leader of the fictional African nation of Wakanda overseen by King T’Challa, a.k.a. the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman).

Coogler’s relatively quick ascension from indie auteur to blockbuster mastermind doesn’t surprise Whitaker, who was intrigued by what he might be able to achieve given the broad canvas of a Hollywood superhero movie.

Forest Whitaker in Black Panther [Marvel]

“I knew he was going to be a major filmmaker,” Whitaker says about Coogler, 31. “I knew it because of odd reasons. No. 1, I thought he had a really strong moral compass and had a clarity in what he wanted to say. That made him know what he was trying to accomplish in the films he would be making. I felt he was a visionary even at that time with just the stories he had told me. Yeah, I knew something was going to happen.”

For a young filmmaker, getting enthusiastic support from Whitaker is no small thing. After all, the 56-year-old actor has worked with some of the best directors from multiple generations. Everyone from old-school masters like Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Oliver Stone and Clint Eastwood; to more recent A-listers such as David Fincher, Lee Daniels and Denis Villeneuve; to indie auteurs Jim Jarmusch and Spike Jonze have hired him.

As with most of his performances, Whitaker brings gravitas to Black Panther as Zuri, a spiritual leader with ties to Wakanda’s royal family. The actor is no stranger to modern blockbusters, having shown up most recently in the Star Wars franchise as resistance fighter Saw Gerrera in 2016’s Rogue One.

But Whitaker’s probably best known for two searing performances as real-life figures. In Clint Eastwood’s 1988 biopic Bird, he played troubled jazz genius Charlie Parker, while his terrifying turn as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland earned him an Oscar for best actor.

“My natural attraction is going to be toward films that actually comment on society and try to better society.”

Whitaker continues to choose films that showcase his versatility, including playing Desmond Tutu in Roland Joffe’s The Forgiven and a journalist investigating the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. in LAbyrinth.

“My natural attraction is going to be toward films that actually comment on society and try to better society, to build up our desire to address issues and at the same time offer some form of solutions,” he says. “Either the solution of being able to have a dialogue or the solution of actually getting a point of view to figure out what to do to change it. I’m always going to do films that have that around them. They’ll be other films as well, but the large portion of them will probably have that comment.”

That includes Black Panther. While the film contains no shortage of dizzying action sequences, intriguing gadgets, explosions and exhilarating production, Coogler also gives it a contemplative centre by examining issues of race, representation, isolationism and identity.

“It takes you on an amazing ride, there’s so many things to experience,” Whitaker says. “It’s with humour but also with real emotional truth throughout the movie that really stops you and makes you think about the message that Ryan is saying. It’s unusual to find a movie that does all those things.”

LOS ANGELES — Director Ryan Coogler admits he was surprised by the initial feedback he got from the bigwigs at Marvel Studios when he began sharing his vision for its next franchise, Black Panther.

After all, he was set to make a $200-million epic blockbuster; a popcorn movie that mixed dazzling special effects, heart-stopping action sequences and sprawling set design. Presumably, the idea was to ensure it received the widest audience possible.

But when he met with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and other producers, Coogler was honest about wanting to make a superhero film that dug deep into the themes he had already explored in his first two films. It would be a superhero movie, but it would also have more than a few hints of the intimate work the filmmaker had already delivered in his relatively short five-year career.

Feige’s response? “Great. Let’s get going.”

“I was not expecting that,” says Coogler during a press conference in Beverly Hills earlier this month alongside Feige and the Black Panther cast. “But as I got to know these guys, specifically Kevin, this is what they are all about. He is all about making something that entertains people, that works as a piece of entertainment but leaves you with something to think about. He was very encouraging. I was getting notes while we were working on this: ‘Make it more specific, make it more personal.’ “

Four years earlier, Coogler had become an indie sensation thanks to his debut film, Fruitvale Station. It was a powerful, heart-wrenching drama based on the real-life police shooting of a young black man. While he entered the more mainstream world of the Rocky franchise with his 2015 followup, Creed, the critically acclaimed entry did nothing to diminish his reputation as an uncompromising filmmaker who asked tough questions about race, poverty and division in his country.

Still, he says the idea of making a mega-budgeted superhero flick was not all that foreign a concept to him.

“I grew up loving comic books,” he says. “Not just comic books, I loved pop culture. I loved toys, action figures, video games. When I got older and realized I wanted to make movies, that’s when I fell in love with international cinema and cinema that left you with something to chew on, something to think about. But I never fell out of love with those types of stories. The best version of those stories do both things.”

Judging from the early reviews of Black Panther, this is exactly what Coogler has achieved. Critics have pointed out the filmmaker’s ease with the superhero hallmarks that make these movies so much fun: the snappy one-liners, the non-stop action, the scenery-chewing villains, the vast, visual creativity. But many have also marvelled at how Coogler and his crew have deepened the genre by adding snippets of African culture, by exploring isolationism and colonialism, by introducing a group of empowered female characters and by asking provocative and timely questions about power and social responsibility.

All of this is wrapped into what at first seems like a fairly traditional origin story. After his father is murdered by a terrorist while giving a speech at the United Nations, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) becomes the king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda and inherits the role of its protector, the Black Panther. To the outside world, the country looks like an impoverished nation of farmers. In reality, it is technically advanced and incredibly wealthy.

But Wakanda is also isolated, thriving in secret with little interaction with other countries. At the heart of the film is a question about how it should use its power. Wakandan spy, and Black Panther’s former love interest, Nakia (played by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o) believes it should be used to better the lives of those suffering in surrounding countries. A villain with the revealing and not-so-subtle moniker of Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) emerges with a very different idea.

Coogler and his team present a unique vision of Africa, celebrating its colour, diversity, tribal culture and resourcefulness. For actress Danai Gurira, who grew up in Zimbabwe and plays the fierce, baldheaded Wakandan general Okoye, seeing Africa portrayed this way was an emotional experience.

“That’s something that you always want,” says Gurira, who is best known for playing Michonne on The Walking Dead. “You see the power and the potential of where you’re from, but you see how skewed it’s viewed by the world and how misrepresented it is and how distorted it is perceived by the world. This is kind of a salve to those wounds to see this world brought to life this way and to see all the potential and power of all the different African culturalism and aspects of our being that was celebrated.”

That includes having a superhero — the first African superhero in a major blockbuster — who speaks with an African accent. Boseman, who up until now is probably best known for his uncanny performance as James Brown in the 2014 biopic Get on Up, studied at Oxford.

“You see the power and the potential of where you’re from, but you see how skewed it’s viewed by the world and how misrepresented it is”

But prior to that, he went to Howard University in Washington, D.C., a school where the majority of students are African-American and taught “to respect our writers and our classics.” For a character whose ancestors have never been conquered, it was important that T’Challa had an accent that reflected his coming of age in a world untouched by colonialism, Boseman says.

The Black Panther made his cinematic debut with a cameo in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. But as a comic-book character, he has been around since the mid-1960s when he and Wakanda first appeared in a Fantastic Four story. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Black Panther was the first African hero to appear in a mainstream comic.

“Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the whole Marvel bullpen created Wakanda and created T’Challa and created Black Panther and made him a smarter, more accomplished character than any of the other white characters in the mid-1960s,” Feige says. “So if they had the guts to do that in the mid-1960s, the least we can do is live up to that and allow this story to be told in the way it needed to be told and not shy away from things that the Marvel family didn’t shy away from in the height of the Civil Rights era.”

We won’t divulge many details, as it is also a key moment in Ryan Coogler’s mega-budgeted superhero film Black Panther. But it involves Freeman’s dashing CIA agent Everett K. Ross leaning on his training as a fighter pilot for a nail-biting, climatic scene that takes place during the heat of battle in the fictional, technically advanced African nation of Wakanda.

“I was really pleased,” says Freeman. “I thought it was generous on the film’s part. We’re not short of white heroes in movies. So I thought to give one of the two white characters a bit of a heroic moment spoke very well of them.”

As Freeman is quick to point out, Black Panther is not about Everett K. Ross. He is a sidekick in the film, albeit a heroic one who is able to take charge in chaotic situations.

So Freeman was adamant that Ross not be a “schmuck” when interacting with Black Panther’s titular hero and his many heroic cohorts. While the British actor has proven to be an expert at deadpan comedy — check him out in the U.K. version of The Office or his turn as a loyal sidekick Dr. John Watson in Sherlock — he wanted Ross to be more than comic relief.

“We’re not short of white heroes in movies. So I thought to give one of the two white characters a bit of a heroic moment spoke very well of them.”

“In Black Panther he is going to be put out of his comfort zone enough that he doesn’t have to also be goofy,” Freeman says in an interview with Postmedia. “It’s enough that a guy very good at his job with some status is put out of his comfort zone and completely has his mind blown. It doesn’t need to be silly.”

Like the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Ross made his Marvel movie debut in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Freeman signed on with the understanding that the character would eventually reappear in some form in the Marvel Universe.

It may seem like an against-type swerve for Freeman, who first gained prominence as the mellow, self-deprecating Tim Canterbury in the original U.K. version of The Office opposite the narcissistic David Brent of Ricky Gervais.

But since then he has shown his range, particularly on prestige television. In Crackle’s thriller Startup, he won good reviews as the corrupt and creepily aggressive FBI agent. In the first season of the Calgary-shot FX dark comedy Fargo, he offered a nuanced turn as a sad-sack insurance salesman who slowly discovers his talents for murder and mayhem.

He has gone heroic before. His Watson in Sherlock is an Afghanistan war veteran and he was believable as J.R.R. Tolkien’s reluctantly heroic Bilbo Baggins in the three-part Hobbit trilogy.

But Freeman’s Ross is much more of a take-charge type of guy who dodges bullets, interrogates baddies and pilots futuristic crafts in Wakanda.

Martin Freeman [Getty Images]

“It feels pretty crazy,” Freeman says about the action sequences. “The shoot-’em-up scene in the Korean casino is just full of very impressive work by stunt people. You see those people really earn their money, taking proper tumbles and dives and falls and just doing lunatic things that I’m glad it’s not my job to do.

“It’s loud, it’s chaotic. It’s an organized chaos, but when the scene is going on and there are squibs going off everywhere and explosions and stunt guys flinging themselves down stairs, you think ‘I’m staying out of the way of that 6’4 guy who is going to fall right next to me.’ “

As for that “Han Solo” moment, much of Ross’s heroics were aided by green-screen technology, which also presented unique challenges for the actor.

“The challenge there is, genuinely, to avoid bad acting,” Freeman says. “Because you are imagining everything. I did that scene several months after principal photography. So you’re getting back into that world of ‘Hang on, who is doing what? Where am I?’ You’re imagining everything you’re seeing because you’re not seeing anything and you are not acting with anyone else.

“It’s all things that are rife for making you do some terrible acting. That’s the challenge for me in scenes like that: not overdoing it, not underdoing it. Yeah, just not being sh-t. That’s the main challenge in all acting. All my work is trying not to be sh-t.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/martin-freeman-grateful-for-heroic-black-panther-moment/feed0Black Pantherpostmedianews1Martin FreemanRevitalized Mariner ready to make its spring returnhttp://o.canada.com/travel/ports-and-bows/revitalized-mariner-ready-to-make-its-spring-return
http://o.canada.com/travel/ports-and-bows/revitalized-mariner-ready-to-make-its-spring-return#respondWed, 14 Feb 2018 23:09:47 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766793The start of the 2018 Alaska cruise season is just a few months away and ultra-luxury line Regent Seven Seas Cruises is planning to return for another season sailing from Vancouver with a completely revitalized ship.

Seven Seas Mariner became the world’s first all-suite, all-balcony cruise ship when she debuted in 2001, and Regent plans to put the 700-guest vessel through its largest and most dramatic transformation to date during a 20-day drydock scheduled for this April at the Chantier Naval de Marseille shipyard in Marseille, France. Once completed, she’ll set sail across the Atlantic, bound for the Pacific Ocean and Alaska.

“We are delighted to relaunch the refurbished Seven Seas Mariner for what will be an unforgettable 2018 Alaska season,” said Jason Montague, president and chief executive of Regent Seven Seas Cruises. “Seven Seas Mariner will have been elevated to the highest standards of elegance, and guests will enjoy the highly personalized service delivered by every member of Seven Seas Mariner’s exceptional staff and crew. Once Seven Seas Mariner completes her refurbishment, Regent’s fleet will definitively be the most luxurious at sea.”

Seven Seas Mariner is one of the most comfortable ships I’ve ever set foot on. During a day visit in Vancouver a few years ago, I was impressed at the ship’s vibrant decor, soaring atrium, and wide-open deck spaces — all of which are about to be made better by this refit.

The ship’s pool deck is the recipient of the most dramatic transformation, owing to a completely new layout and brand new teak decking throughout. A new mosaic-tiled pool with a ledge for shallow-water-lounging will be installed, and guests will be able to enjoy expanded selections at the nearby Pool Grill thanks to the addition of new infrared barbecue grills.

Throughout the ship, all public rooms and guest corridors will receive new artwork, furniture and décor. The ship’s superb Coffee Connection Bar, boutiques, and casino will all be completely redone. The ship’s Library — a cosy enclave if there ever was one — is also getting a redo, with new dark-wood bookshelves situated against cream furnishings and illuminated by a copper chandelier. Even the outdoor promenade on Deck 6 will be replaced with new teak wood.

The ship’s elegant suites are getting a makeover as well, along with the ship’s numerous dining venues. You might not expect a smaller luxury ship to offer as many options as Seven Seas Mariner does, but that’s one of Regent’s best strengths: impeccable food delivered with exacting service. A new restaurant, Chartreuse, will be added during drydock to serve up sumptuous French Cuisine; while guest favourites, including the Compass Rose Dining Room and the Prime 7 Steakhouse, will also be completely refitted.

Like most luxury lines, Regent offers a host of inclusions for its cruises, including free unlimited shore excursions, inclusive premium wines and spirits, open bars and mini-bars, inclusive gratuities, no extra charges for specialty restaurants, and included Wi-Fi internet access. Certain specials can even add free round-trip economy-class air and transfers between the airport and the ship, and even a one-night free hotel stay for guests that book Concierge-level staterooms or higher.

The fully refurbished Seven Seas Mariner will make her debut in Vancouver on May 16, with a week-long cruise to Alaska that includes port calls in Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, Sitka, and scenic cruising of Hubbard Glacier before the voyage ends in Seward.

Regent is offering a season of 15 voyages to Alaska aboard Seven Seas Mariner, with seven-, 10- and 11-night itineraries on offer that operate from Vancouver and Seward, Alaska. A full Panama Canal transit from Miami to Vancouver is also offered on April 18; while a 10-night Pacific Coastal cruise from San Francisco to Vancouver departs May 6.

Seven Seas Mariner sticks around until Sept. 12, when she departs Vancouver on an Alaska and Pacific Northwest voyage that concludes in San Francisco. This is a great voyage that calls on Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka and Hubbard Glacier; Victoria and Astoria, Ore. Like all Regent cruises, Seven Seas Mariner’s voyages in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest offer free unlimited shore excursions to guests; a total of 44 different options in all.

Happy cruising.

Visit Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744, www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly at portsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

Love is soft as an easy chair, a many splendored thing, what you want it to be. And love is a rose — but you’d better not pick it. For Valentine’s Day, here’s a look at some memorable love songs (several have been written over the years). Also a look at the flip side: songs about flying solo.

Lone Justice, I Found Love (1986). Joyous kickoff track to the excellent Shelter album. Maria McKee really belts it out: She sounds like she’s really found love! (As an aside, McKee’s half-brother, Bryan MacLean, was a member of the influential ‘60s band Love.)

Barbra Streisand, Evergreen (1976). Delicate ballad opens with one of Streisand’s most famous opening lines (written by Paul Williams): “Love, soft as an easy chair … ” It gets real gooey after that.

Andy Williams, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1955). From the movie of the same name, this Sammy Fain /Paul Francis Webster composition won an Academy Award for best original song. Another famous lyric — the whole thing started with Han Suyin’s 1952 novel A Many-Splendored Thing.

Prairie Oyster, Did You Fall in Love with Me (1991). Charming tune that subtly captures the apprehension and anticipation of a developing relationship. “I thought I saw a ghost of a smile / When my hand brushed against your hair.” Oh my, I’m blushing already! Great mandolin solo, too.

Russell deCarle of Prairie Oyster [Ottawa Citizen]

Alannah Myles, Love Is (1989). This debut single (written by David Tyson and Christopher Ward) and stylish accompanying video launched Myles in Canada. The riff is still funky and the chorus still hooks: “Love is / What you want it to be / Love is / Heaven to the lonely.”

Celine Dion, My Heart Will Go On (1997). I tried to avoid breakup / long-distance songs on this list, since that’s another category entirely. But in the last verse of Will Jennings’ lyrics, Dion sings: “You’re here / There’s nothing I fear.” So I’m claiming My Heart Will Go On for this list. The most powerful of power ballads, and beloved worldwide. I think it was voted Most Lovingly Heartfelt Song for Couples Whose Devotion Transcends Human History and Outer Space — and it was unanimous! Except one vote for …

Force MDs, Tender Love (1985). My favourite love song, no apologies. I love the unhurried tempo, the percussive touches and the gorgeous vocal harmonies. And when I try to sing along with the high parts … I sound spectacular. Come on!

Linda Ronstadt, Love Is a Rose (1975). Written by Neil Young, this is as good a metaphor for love lost as I’ve heard: “Love is a rose / But you’d better not pick it / It only grows when it’s on the vine / A handful of thorns / And you’ll know you’ve missed it / You lose your love when you say the word mine.”

Frank Sinatra in 1956 []

And, for those flying solo this Valentine’s Day …

Frank Sinatra, Only the Lonely (1958). The original Voice paired with frequent collaborator, legendary arranger Nelson Riddle. They’re my pick as greatest jazz-pop pairing of the 1950s. But if you said it’s Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong … Well, it’s not a relationship-changer.

Depeche Mode, But Not Tonight (1986). Songwriter Martin Gore celebrates a night all by his lonesome, sung convincingly by Dave Gahan: “Here on my own / All on my own / How good it feels to be alone tonight.”

Gilbert O’Sullivan, Alone Again (Naturally) (1972). Nothing celebratory about solitude in this massive hit. It opens with the narrator contemplating jumping off a nearby tower, then goes downhill from there. If not the gold-medal winner for most depressing pop song, it’s at least on the podium.

Eric Carmen, All by Myself (1975). Another tough look at being single. Everyone can get behind the surging, emotional chorus: “All by myself / Don’t want to be / All by myself anymore.”

Whitney Houston []

Natasha Bedingfield, Single (2004). Catchy pop anthem by an underrated singer/songwriter. It’s her declaration of independence: “I’m not waitin’ around for a man to save me / Don’t depend on a guy to validate me.”

Beyoncé, Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) (2008). Another ridiculously catchy pop anthem. Like, an insanely catchy, dance-inspiring three minutes and 13 seconds of fun. Although the lyrics fall into the post-breakup/new romance category, it’s the chorus that gets it here.

The Greatest Love of All, lyrics by Linda Creed: Originally recorded by George Benson in 1977, more famously by Whitney Houston in 1985, less famously by actress Sandra Hüller in the 2016 film Toni Erdmann. It’s the ultimate chest-swelling, self-esteem manifesto: “Learning to love yourself / It is the greatest love of all.”

In October, a French judge handed down a ruling that anyone with access to Instagram could have seen coming: a guilty verdict in his corruption case. The social media playboy is famous for posts of luxury cars, champagne-fuelled trips to beaches in Cuba, and the purchase of Michael Jackson’s crystal-studded glove. #Luxuryliving.

Judge Benedicte de Perthuis called for the assets — including over $45 million in fines and the $160-million Paris mansion — to be returned to the people of Equatorial Guinea, ideally in the form of aid, as opposed to the French treasury.

It was only a recommendation, lacking the legal framework to compel the assets be returned. To ensure they are, Transparency International, an NGO working in more than 100 countries to combat global corruption, is lobbying for a legislative amendment for cases like Obiang’s.

The case raises an interesting question: How do you return money to a country whose government stole it? And how do we turn it into development funding?

This solution is no doubt complex, but it’s also a moral imperative.

In 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), agents inspect a Ferrari at the Malibu, Calif., mansion of the son of Equitorial Guinea’s president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang, [The Associated Press]

“It was an open secret,” says Lucas Olo Fernandes, program co-ordinator at Transparency International, about the flow of corrupt money into France. “This is obviously money from a country that needs it.”

Equatorial Guinea has the highest per capita income in Africa — yet half the population don’t have access to clean drinking water and 40 per cent of children aren’t in school.

An estimated US$2 trillion is lost to corruption globally every year. Even a tiny portion of this treasure chest would represent a new — and massive — funding stream to help implement development initiatives like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

This is bold thinking — and it should be the new benchmark.

Fernandes says the first step is supporting democratic reform and finding legitimate civil society actors — of which there are many in Equatorial Guinea — on the ground. This would involve an inclusive consultation process and a transparent management system working with recognized NGOs.

This is not just an academic pursuit; corrupt money is a real problem that affects many nations, including Canada. Recent reports revealed that kleptocrats are exploiting Canada’s tax system to “snow wash” their money.

“This is not something that happens (just) overseas … (Canada) is part of the problem and must be part of the solution.”

“This is not something that happens (just) overseas,” explains Alesia Nahirny, executive director of Transparency International Canada. “(Canada) is part of the problem and must be part of the solution.”

With rumblings of two impending cases against leaders from Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville, France is getting serious about the vast sums of corrupt money flowing through its borders. Britain, too, has recently passed new legislation compelling those suspected of profiting from corruption explain their wealth.

Canada must follow suit.

Our country’s laws and institutions should not offer safe haven for leaders who steal from their own people. Canada’s recently passed version of the U.S. Magnitsky law (formally known as the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act) is a good start, empowering legislators to go after offenders.

But simply seizing their assets is not enough. That money belongs where it will do the most good: helping lift the world’s poor out of poverty.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of the WE movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

LOS ANGELES — It doesn’t take long into a rollcall of female characters in Black Panther to recognize a certain trend.

These women get the job done.

There’s Okoye (Danai Gurira), the fierce head of an elite unit of female bodyguards who oversees intel and security for the technically advanced fictional African country of Wakanda and its new king, T’Challa, a.k.a. Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman). Her combat skills are equal, if not superior, to the titular character and she doesn’t need a custom-made vibranium suit to protect herself while using them. There’s also Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), a Wakandan spy and Black Panther’s former love interest who is also no slouch in hand-to-hand combat but also possesses a sense of social justice far deeper than any of the men around her. There’s Shuri (Letitia Wright), Black Panther’s genius kid sister who is far more adept than her older brother when it comes to understanding, designing and explaining Wakanda’s advanced technology.

Finally, there’s Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Black Panther’s mother and queen mother of Wakanda who attempts to hold the kingdom together after her husband is murdered by terrorists.

As Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner pointed out while hosting a news conference for the latest lavish entry into the Marvel Universe in Beverly Hills last week, the movie may be titled Black Panther but it could very well have been called The Badass Women of Wakanda.

“In African culture, they feel as if there is no king without a queen,” says Bassett, who joined the cast, director Ryan Coogler and producer Kevin Feige in Beverly Hills the day after the star-studded Hollywood premiere of the film. “In this story, it highlights the queen, the warrior, the young sister. I was so proud to have my daughter and my son there last night. Because in their faces and in their spirit, they were feeling themselves. And they stood taller after last night.”

Not unlike recent blockbusters Wonder Woman and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Black Panther seems to represent a modern shift in thinking when it comes to the types of roles females can have in action-packed blockbusters. The film must be doing something right. Weeks before its release it became victim of a campaign by an alt-right group to sabotage its score on Rotten Tomatoes. The plan failed miserably, but not before it was revealed that it was hatched by the same basement-dwelling trolls who attempted a similar tampering of the Last Jedi a few months earlier because they were disgusted by what they saw as the film’s “feminist agenda.”

There was no talk of a feminist agenda at the Beverly Hills news conference, which happened before the Rotten Tomatoes story came to light. But there was a sense among the female cast that the film deserved to be celebrated not only because it is the first time a black superhero has headlined a Marvel Universe blockbuster, but because it also offered so many deep and meaningful roles for women.

“Her joy and her pride is walking with that bald head and that tattoo on it,” says Gurira. “It’s so subversive.”

The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira plays Okoye, both a general of the Wakandan armed forces and the leader of Dora Milaje, the royal family’s ferocious baldheaded, tattooed bodyguards. In one scene, Okoye bitterly objects to having to wear a wig while undercover.

“Her joy and her pride is walking with that bald head and that tattoo on it,” says Gurira. “It’s so subversive and it’s so subversive in the right way to say you don’t have to have hair to be beautiful. I thought that was so fun. There’s so many great things I could say about how Ryan developed these women characters and allowed us to collaborate. I feel really blessed about it.”

The talent wasn’t just in front of the camera either. Coogler points out that the film employed a number of women behind the scenes, not to be subversive but because they were the best people for the job.

“This film had the involvement of brilliant women all over it, from start to finish,” he says.

All of which offers a strong message for audiences, says Nyong’o, an Oscar winner.

“Each and every one of us is an individual, unique,” she says. “We all have our own sense of power and our own agency and we hold our own space without being pitted against each other. I think that’s a very powerful message to send to children, both male and female.

“In this film, there is so many of us. We really get a sense of the fabric of Wakanda as a nation. We see women alongside men and we see how much more effective a society can be if we allow women to explore their full potential.”

Black Panther opens Feb. 16.

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/movies/black-panther-puts-women-in-spotlight-lets-them-roar/feed0Black Pantherpostmedianews1Black PantherNiksen is the new hyggehttp://o.canada.com/life/niksen-is-the-new-hygge
http://o.canada.com/life/niksen-is-the-new-hygge#respondMon, 12 Feb 2018 22:10:06 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766763Another day, another globally inspired lifestyle philosophy. In the last few years, we’ve embraced hygge, the Danish idea of cosy simplicity; còsagach, the Scottish concept of staying snug and sheltered; and lagom, the Swedish principle of enjoying balance in life.

Now, there’s niksen, what the Dutch call doing absolutely nothing — and not feeling an ounce of guilt about it. Quite different from sloth and its Jabba the Hutt connotations, the goal of niksen is to relieve stress, recharge and prevent burnout. It’s about slowing down, letting your mind wander and challenging the cult of busyness.

Another benefit: The Atlantic reports that contemplation and daydreaming can spark creativity.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/niksen-is-the-new-hygge/feed0sad girl looking out the windowmhank201224 Hour Challenge wants teens to sneak into Ikeahttp://o.canada.com/life/homes/24-hour-challenge-wants-teens-to-sneak-into-ikea
http://o.canada.com/life/homes/24-hour-challenge-wants-teens-to-sneak-into-ikea#respondMon, 12 Feb 2018 22:04:35 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766758What’s a teen to do when the Tide Pod Challenge is no more — or it becomes undeniably lame? Why, sleep in Ikea furniture, of course.

Last week, police in the U.K. issued a warning about a fad called the 24 Hour Challenge after an 11-year-old boy didn’t return home from school and was considered missing, until it was revealed that he had been sleeping overnight in a Malm dresser at Ikea.

The challenge demands that young people sneak into businesses, spend the night there and upload videos to YouTube as proof of their shenanigans. The trend began in 2016 when two Belgian teens spent the night in a closet at Ikea.

Since then, reports Vice, teens worldwide have been building overnight forts in places like trampoline parks, Walmart, Chuck E. Cheese and McDonald’s. A quick YouTube search for “24 Hour Overnight Challenge” currently yields more than 1.5 million results.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/homes/24-hour-challenge-wants-teens-to-sneak-into-ikea/feed0Europe Ikea Selling Onlinemhank2012Why couch potatoes are good for the Earthhttp://o.canada.com/life/homes/why-couch-potatoes-are-good-for-the-earth
http://o.canada.com/life/homes/why-couch-potatoes-are-good-for-the-earth#respondMon, 12 Feb 2018 21:49:28 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766752As if we needed another reason to be couch potatoes. According to a report in the journal Joule, Americans spent the equivalent of eight days more at home in 2012 than they spent in 2003 — and that led to 1.8 per cent drop in energy consumption in the country.

That’s right: it’s greener to be a homebody, even though Americans are spending the equivalent of eight more days with the TV turned on than they did in 2003.

The article, titled Changes in Time Use and Their Effect on Energy Consumption in the United States, explains that technology and socio-economic trends — such as online shopping and Netflix — are the main forces behind the lifestyle change.

“We find that Americans are spending more time at home and correspondingly less time travelling and in offices and stores,” it reads, according to treehugger.com. “We find that more time at home implies lower energy consumption due to reduced automobile travel and energy use in non-residential buildings.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/homes/why-couch-potatoes-are-good-for-the-earth/feed0Happy young couple relaxing on the couchmhank2012This robot sorts, folds laundry for youhttp://o.canada.com/life/homes/this-robot-sorts-folds-laundry-for-you
http://o.canada.com/life/homes/this-robot-sorts-folds-laundry-for-you#respondMon, 12 Feb 2018 21:26:35 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766738We can’t all have our own personal Rosie the Robot — like George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, and Jane, his wife — but the Laundroid will have you feeling positively Jetson-esque.

Unveiled at the most recent Consumer Electronics Show, the Laundroid is a laundry-folding robot that looks less like dear Rosie and more like a standing mirrored wardrobe with a deep bottom drawer.

Just toss your clean clothes into that drawer, and the Laundroid will use image analysis to figure out what’s in there and then sort, fold and stack your clothing on the appropriate shelf.

You get to choose how the Laundroid organizes your clothes via the companion app. The machine will need to run overnight to be of use to the average family.

As the makers of the Laundroid point out, we spend an average of 18,000 hours of our lives on laundry, and 375 days just folding clothes. But, it’ll cost you to get that precious time back: For the convenience of a Laundroid, you’ll pay a very likely inconvenient US$17,000.

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

MOVIES

Big releases Feb. 16: Black Panther; Early Man.

Big picture: Comic books continue to dominate the silver screen. After DC’s Wonder Woman introduced us to a secret, secluded island of beautiful, deadly amazons, Black Panther explores the secret, reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda. To the world, they’re about textiles and shepherds. But underneath the cloak of secrecy, they’re more like Atlantis meets Dune. Following the exploits of Captain America: Civil War, King T’Challa (Black Panther, portrayed by Chadwick Boseman) returns to his homeland to claim the throne, but soon finds himself caught up in a battle for power. It’s like Game of Thrones meets sci-fi meets Marvel’s Midas box-office touch in a jungle. Expect lines like, “The world is changing. Soon there will be the conquered and the conquerors.”

Meanwhile, Early Man follows another family clan fighting for survival — only with more one-liners and claymation than Black Panther. The animated epic delivers prehistoric family fun as it follows a brave caveman named Dug (voice of Eddie Redmayne) and his best friend Hognob (Nick Park) as they unite their tribe against a common foe — a big, bad Bronze Age city.

Forecast: I remember Early Man when it was done right: the 1960s version of The Flintstones. Meanwhile, the timing is right for a big-screen feature about the first mainstream African-American superhero. This cat’s got claws, and Black Panther will be a fixture in future Avengers’ films. (Given that Disney owns just about everything and every character ever made — including Marvel — I predict an inevitable Black Panther vs. Pink Panther crossover.)

Big picture: This reality TV miniseries — coinciding with the Olympics — will bring together 14 horny, drunk contestants from past The Bachelor and The Bachelorette contests around the globe. It’s basically like your average youth hostel only with less excursions. Set in Vermont, with a promise of plenty of snow time, this one should have Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye dreaming of a green Christmas from beyond the grave. Promo tag lines include, “winter tears are coming” and “bundled up and looking for love.” (Where are the White Walkers when you need them?)

Meanwhile, Everything Sucks! Is My So-Called Life meets Glee meets Stranger Things. Set in a 1990s Oregon high school, this dramedy follows a crew of geeky teens in the A/V club and drama club as they navigate the monstrous world of … puberty.

Forecast: I would have preferred an honest TV series title for once: The Bachelor: Everything Sucks!

Honourable mention: The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale (Feb. 18, Netflix). Apparently, you can enjoy seconds of The Soup. McHale’s new weekly series will build upon his former series’ format, serving a mix of celeb guests, sketches and clips from the world of entertainment, politics and sports. After the failure of the CBS sitcom The Great Indoors, the one-time Community star deserves a win.

Big picture: I’ve spent most of my life looking for music to solve my problems, and finally an album promises to do just that. Scotland’s dynamic duo have been delivering emotional, dynamic, genre-bending music for almost two decades. This one is a combination of three five-song EPs that play some strings while pulling on your heart strings. You’ll dance, you’ll cry. Enjoy.

Meanwhile, Born Ruffians continue to be the best thing to ever come out of Midland, Ont. (which doesn’t sound like a real place). The indie rockers release album No. 5, whose title sounds like the beginning of a bad walk-into-a-bar joke.

Forecast: Born Ruffians ’60s-infused single Miss You sums up how you should feel about both of these bands. They may not solve all of your problems, but I promise they’ll solve the problem of what new music to listen to this week and beyond.

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-feb-12-black-panther-bachelor-winter-games-and-more/feed0Black Pantherpostmedianews1CHRIS HARRISONBorn RuffiansSoak up Seaside’s fun on-board adventureshttp://o.canada.com/travel/ports-and-bows/soak-up-seasides-fun-on-board-adventures
http://o.canada.com/travel/ports-and-bows/soak-up-seasides-fun-on-board-adventures#respondWed, 07 Feb 2018 23:08:36 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766690Once in a while, a ship comes along that is boldly disruptive. It changes the way that we think about what constitutes a cruise, and what is possible on an ocean-going vessel. Geneva-based MSC Cruises may have done just that with its newest megaship, the 4,132-guest MSC Seaside.

The first thing you’ll notice about MSC Seaside is how different she is — and I don’t just mean in terms of size. The way the ship looks, flows and feels is unlike anything else afloat. Over a thousand feet (323 metres) long and 20 decks high, MSC Seaside is an entirely new class of ship from Europe’s fastest-growing ocean cruise line.

On my week-long Western Caribbean cruise from Miami, I tested out as many features as I could, and still came away feeling I needed another week on board to fully experience it all. The ship, which was just launched in late December, is the first new vessel in the MSC fleet to be christened and home-ported in the United States.

Throughout the ship, public rooms have their own distinctive vibe and drink menus; some are loud and boisterous; others quiet and subdued. Some, like the Seaview Lounge on Deck 8, with its sweeping banks of windows and evening jazz duos, are so classy I could have been on a luxury line. Others are hip and cool. How many ships have you been on with a DJ and a jazz musician playing cool club beats in an atrium flanked by staircases with inlaid Swarovski crystals? This is not your grandmother’s cruise ship.

For families, MSC Seaside has the best kids and teens clubs I’ve seen outside of Disney Cruise Line, including Club Lego that made me wish I was a kid again. A two-lane bowling alley with adjacent 5D theatre and a F1 racing simulator; two massive waterslides; a zip line; and an uber-fun Forest Aquaventure splash park are just some of the family-friendly diversions on board. Equally noteworthy is an on-board chocolate lounge operated by Italian chocolatier Venchi. You’ll smell its delicious aroma before you see it.

For adults, the MSC Aurea Spa is a wonderful enclave. In the Thermal Suite, a snow room, Finnish saunas, rainforest showers, a salt room, and a thalassotherapy pool soothe the body. The usual assortment of treatments are available, and you can even rent (at a cost) private cabanas situated on the forward end of the promenade deck, complete with inclusive massage. Guests choosing Aurea Spa Suite accommodations receive complimentary access to this area throughout the cruise.

Praise should be given to the ship’s excellent production shows and their short, 40-minute duration that allows you to take in multiple events each evening. Ditto for the fabulous and reasonably-priced guided cycling excursions offered in almost every port of call, using MSC Seaside’s own fleet of high-end Shimano bicycles. I spent an enjoyable day cycling in Costa Maya, Mexico, on a six-hour guided tour that included a 90-minute rest at a quiet beach.

The crown jewel of MSC Seaside, however, is her Yacht Club experience. Guests booked in Yacht Club staterooms and suites are treated to an amazing private lounge that spans two decks in height. On its uppermost level, the Yacht Club Restaurant offers breakfast, lunch and dinner in a relaxed and indulgent setting overlooking the equally private Topsail Lounge. Service is excellent, and the views are commensurate with the experience. A private sun deck comes complete with pool, hot tubs, a bar, and plenty of loungers and cabanas.

There are still some growing pains. The ship’s layout is somewhat disjointed, and a lack of printed information in staterooms on general shipboard features and procedures results in long lineups for guest relations for basic questions, like how to register your credit card once on board (use the kiosks!) or the fact that reservations, though free, are still needed for the most popular evening shows in the ship’s main theatre.

Nevertheless, this is a ship that is big, unconventional and thoroughly fun, and attracts a diverse crowd of international families. MSC Seaside makes her home year-round in the Port of Miami, where she offers up a splash of the European way of life, transplanted to the Caribbean for all to enjoy.

Happy cruising.

Visit Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744, www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly at portsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

With just a couple of weeks to go before Valentine’s Day, stores are filled with cards and gifts and heart-shaped chocolates. But love comes in many shapes and sizes, not least of which the many picture books that teach children about friends and family and sharing and kindness.

Yak and Dove

Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Esmé Shapiro

Tundra Books

Ages 4 to 8

Yak and Dove, by Toronto’s Kyo Maclear, is such a book. Wonderfully illustrated in watercolour, gouache and coloured pencil by Brooklyn’s Esmé Shapiro, it is the tale of an unlikely friendship shared by a large furry animal and a small feathered bird.

Told in three parts, as dialogue between the two friends, Maclear’s text is perfect for reading aloud and manages to avoid cloying cutesy-ness while retaining the humour inherent in its oddball plot. The author has done a masterful job of creating distinctive, believable voices for the main characters, who go from celebrating their closeness, to driving each other apart, to discovering that they really do value their friendship.

Children of all ages will recognize the love between Yak and Dove, and appreciate the fact that true friends can overcome the occasional falling out.

Days With Dad

Nari Hong

Enchanted Lion Books

Ages 4 to 8

Days With Dad, by Korean author/illustrator Nari Hong, also celebrates differences — but of a more familial variety. The narrator, a little girl, tells us about her father, who is in a wheelchair and has been unable to walk since he was a baby.

He often tells her he’s sorry that he can’t do the things other fathers do with their children, but she always has a response that makes it clear she is happy to share the things he CAN do with her — like teach her about flowers and birds in the park, go ice fishing with her while others skate, build sandcastles on the beach, or make rainy-day cocoa.

“I’m just happy being with him every single day,” the girl tells us in this simple, loving picture book.

A Day With Yayah

Nicola Campbell, illustrated by Julie Flett

Tradewind Books

Ages 5 to 8

A Day With Yayah, by Nicola I. Campbell, is another family-based volume — this one about Indigenous children who go out foraging for edible plants and mushrooms with their grandmother. Set in the Southern Interior of British Columbia, it features the artwork of Vancouver’s Julie Flett, who (with author David A. Robertson) won the 2017 Governor General’s Literary Award for When We Were Alone, and includes words from a now-endangered language traditionally spoken by part of the Interior Salishan peoples.

Yayah, the grandmother in this informative picture book, not only aims to teach her grandchildren about the foods Mother Earth provides, but also to restore to them the language that colonization and residential school policies stole from their parents. A glossary is provided and anyone wanting to read the text aloud would be wise to first practise the phonetic pronunciations provided.

Love

Matt de la Peña, illustrated by Loren Long

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

All ages

Love, by Matt de la Peña, is worth checking out if you’re looking for a Valentine’s Day gift for anyone close to your heart — regardless of age. Beautifully illustrated by Loren Long in collaged monotype prints, acrylic paint and pencil, it opens with an image of young parents standing at the foot of their infant’s crib, and ends with loved ones seeing their children off at a train station.

Throughout the book, there are varying scenes of love and kinship: In one, a young boy in a wheelchair offers a disabled man on a park bench a hot dog while the boy’s mother waits nearby. Each two-page spread depicts an example of love, in both lyrical text and surprise-filled illustrations.

But it’s not all sweetness and light. One of the spreads depicts what is clearly a scene of domestic turmoil; another shows a family gathered in front of a televised newscast, shielding a young girl from the horrors depicted on screen. Love can mean pain, but more often it means kindness, joy and self-worth, all of which the author and illustrator manage to depict in this book. It’s a gem!

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/books/books-for-kids-celebrating-family-friendship-love/feed0books compositepostmedianews1Global Voices: Why you can do about the nuclear threathttp://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-why-you-can-do-about-the-nuclear-threat
http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-why-you-can-do-about-the-nuclear-threat#respondTue, 06 Feb 2018 07:00:38 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766624Marzhan Nurzhan has a mission. The 25-year-old from Kazakhstan is rallying global youth to tackle one of the biggest threats to her generation. But time may be running out.

Nurzhan has been an international advocate for nuclear disarmament ever since she learned of the impact nuclear weapons had on her country. Two million Kazakhstanis still suffer cancer and birth defects, the fallout from decades of Soviet weapons tests.

While many international organizations are active on nuclear disarmament, advocates like Nurzhan face a major challenge getting ordinary people engaged, especially youth. During the Cold War, public demonstrations against nuclear arms were common. Today, not so much. Increased threats haven’t increased public interest, says Nurzhan.

“(Nuclear disarmament), feels too large for a lot of people and they feel powerless,” says Rob van Riet, peace and disarmament co-ordinator for the World Future Council.

Issues like climate change are daunting, but tangible. Ordinary citizens can contact politicians, demanding policies that reduce emissions. More importantly, people have at least some control over their household energy use. But making superpowers give up their huge arsenals, let alone influencing a rogue state like North Korea, seems unattainable.

Robert Rosner, chairman of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, right, moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight during a news conference [The Associated Press]

Still, Nurzhan and Van Riet insist ordinary people can help reduce the global risk of nuclear conflict.

A powerful tool is divestment. The U.S., Russia and China want to upgrade their aging nuclear arsenals, and develop new types of smaller weapons that could be used on the battlefield. The companies that build parts for those bombs are supported by investors like pension funds — and even our personal RRSP funds. We can pressure investors to drop these companies from their portfolios, pushing them to get out of the bomb business.

Canada is uniquely positioned to be a leader in nuclear disarmament. As climate change makes Arctic waters more accessible to submarines, Russia and the U.S. increasingly see the North as a key part of their nuclear strategy, according to van Riet. As a respected Arctic nation, Canada could lead the campaign to make the region a nuclear-free zone.

Likewise, with public pressure, Canada could play a diplomatic leadership role and insist that all nuclear states follow the example of China and India and declare a ‘no first use’ policy. This would reduce the risk of conventional conflicts escalating into nuclear war.

But if Canada is to be that leader, we have to make it a priority for our government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been conducting town halls across the country — a great opportunity to raise the issue, notes Douglas Roach, a former Canadian senator and Ambassador for Nuclear Disarmament. “If he’s is not hearing from people, he’s going to think people don’t care.”

The Cold War may be a distant memory, but its terrifying ghost still haunts us. It’s time for us to engage again on nuclear disarmament.

The clock is ticking.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of the WE movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

MOVIES

Big releases on Feb. 9: Fifty Shades Freed; Peter Rabbit.

Big Picture: Still oddly lacking in onscreen chemistry, Mr. and Mrs. Grey — fresh off their wedding vows — embrace a life of luxury and kinky bedroom shenanigans. But new challenges emerge in the form of the racy blond architect of their new dream home, dangers from the past and, presumably, the fact manufacturers simply don’t make leather products — from paddles, restraints, harnesses and whips — like they used to.

Expect corny, wooden dialogue that would make a Hallmark-card writer shudder like “I just can’t believe that this is my life … that I get to live with you,” and enchanting couple dialogue like, “So you want to play?” “Yes sir.”

This film franchise, based on E.L. James best-selling novels, doesn’t take itself too seriously. The final instalment’s tagline is “Don’t miss the climax.” Yup.

Meanwhile, the beloved Peter Rabbit gets transformed into a cotton-tailed cross between Bugs Bunny, Bart Simpson, Dennis the Menace and Alvin from the Chipmunks. Is nothing sacred? (Short answer: no). The only redemption: he is voiced by late-night sensation James Corden.

Peter Rabbit still wears a blue jacket and no pants, but he’s now a wily, irreverent critter up to no end of mischief. His tagline is “Rascal. Rebel. Rabbit.” Beatrix Potter is spinning in her grave.

Forecast: We can all at least be thankful there is no release called Fifty Shades Freed: Peter Rabbit. Fans of the fluffy icon have enough change to cope with.

Tim Robbins and Holly Hunter in Here and Now. []

TV

Big event: Here and Now (Feb. 11, HBO Canada).

Big Picture: Here and Now is like This is Us meets Twin Peaks meets the mind of Alan Ball (Six Feet Under, True Blood). This is a twisted, dark, comedic look at two American families living in a broken country — echoing the violence and racism torn from the daily headlines. One is a “progressive, multi-ethnic family” led by a high-minded professor (Tim Robbins) and his liberal lawyer wife (Holly Hunter).

Things get weird one of their many adopted children may be attracting supernatural attention from hidden forces. The other family is Muslim and headed by a respected psychiatrist. Twists and turns are coming, but HBO’s lips are sealed. Expect lines like “The whole country is a mess right now” and “Right now is all that ever exists.”

Forecast: Here and Now, eh America? I can’t be the only one who would have preferred: Here and Three Years from Now.

Big picture: Sure, the X-Files bad boy doesn’t really count as a big release. But Hasselhoff is still big in Germany, so anything is possible. On the X-Files second album, he rocks out. This from a guy who picked up a guitar for the first time just a few years ago.

Meanwhile, Scottish rockers Franz Ferdinand release one of the year’s most anticipated rock efforts. Along with a new guitarist, they also add more electronics to the mix.

“It’s still us,” frontman Alex Kapranos recently told the media, “but it’s maybe trying to do some new things.” Just like Peter Rabbit, I guess.

Forecast: Gillian Anderson will join Duchovny’s next album on drums, and they’ll form a duo known as The Truth is Out There.

2005: What better way to make sure nipples stay neatly tucked away than hire a 60-something British guy for the gig? Safety followed scandal, as Paul McCartney let rip with a tried-and-true set including Drive My Car, Get Back, Live and Let Die, and Hey Jude. But hey, there was an LED stage!

2006: The Rolling Stones barrelled in, another safe musical choice with nary a chance of nippledom — even Mick Jagger’s black ensemble looked almost nunlike. Still, the veteran performers chomped ably into their hits Start Me Up and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

2007: You couldn’t have scripted it better if you tried. Prince, pint-sized yet powerful, belted out Purple Rain in a downpour. Throw in a marching band and a guitar many likened unto a giant phallic symbol (so much for a scandal-free show), and it was a spectacle to remember.

Prince performs during the halftime show at the Super Bowl XLI [The Associated Press]

2008: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers offered up a four-pack of greatest hits: American Girl, I Won’t Back Down, Free Fallin’ and Runnin’ Down a Dream. Straight-ahead and solid.

2009: The run of established acts performing mostly established songs continued with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band cranking out 10th Avenue Freeze Out, Born to Run and Glory Days. But when The Boss gives orders, you best obey: “I want you to step away from the guacamole dip!” he yelled. “I want you to put the chicken fingers down and turn your television all the way up!” Yes, sir!

2010: Some critics claimed The Who mailed their performance in, but at least the stage was cool — the band was perched on a platter that looked like a pulsing speaker, and there were lasers. Lasers! Plus, if you got bored, you could just imagine watching a show from the CSI franchise: theme songs Baba O’Riley, Who Are You and Won’t Get Fooled Again all made the set list.

2011: Poor Black Eyed Peas. For all the hate the group got for its performance, you’d think critics delivered those black eyes themselves. The cover of I’ve Had the Time of My Life was lame — right hook! The light-up suits were gimmicky — left hook! Slash and Fergie butchered Sweet Child o’ Mine — TKO! Game over.

2012: You want spectacle? You got spectacle. Madonna did her best Cleopatra homage, along with LMFAO, Cirque du Soleil, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., Cee Lo Green, cheerleaders and a gospel choir. But for all that, the moment that made headlines was when M.I.A. flipped the bird in front of a TV camera. Cue the US$1.5-million lawsuit from the NFL.

2013: Nobody remembers that Beyoncé was fresh off a scandal involving her lip-synching the U.S. national anthem at Barack Obama’s second inauguration. Everybody remembers this was the year that she reunited with Destiny’s Child and delivered a performance that was pure fire. Literally. There were flames shooting up from the stage.

2014: Ever the entertainer, Bruno Mars lit up the night with Locked Out of Heaven, Treasure, Runaway Baby and Just the Way You Are. Red Hot Chili Peppers jumped out — enthusiastically shirtless, despite the cold — for a version of Give it Away. Minor controversy swirled when viewers realized the Peppers weren’t playing their instruments.

2015: This is the Super Bowl halftime show that gave us Left Shark, the Katy Perry backup dancer wearing a shark costume who went rogue with the choreography during Teenage Dream. Instantly meme-worthy, Left Shark became a symbol of independence, an imperfect underdog in a world that demands perfection, or something like that. Oh, and Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott showed up.

2016: Sure, Coldplay, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson were there, but this was Beyoncé’s moment — again. Bey gave viewers a taste of Lemonade, her second visual album. The song Formation was a bold Black Lives Matter anthem, one reminiscent of the Black Panthers, which instantly begat controversy. Police unions across the states called for protests, and some even tried to picket the NFL.

2017: Lady Gaga flew down from the top of the NRG Stadium and onto the field. There were four outfit changes. A crystal star phone. Flying drones. A strong yet measured message of inclusion. Plus a setlist with Edge of Glory, Born This Way, Telephone, Just Dance, Million Reasons and Bad Romance. Lady Gaga just out-Gaga-ed herself.

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/music/the-13-super-bowl-halftime-shows-post-nipplegate-2/feed0Janet Jackson Justin Timberlakemhank2012Carnival gives its veteran a brighter look for its Bahamas voyageshttp://o.canada.com/travel/carnival-gives-its-veteran-a-brighter-look-for-its-bahamas-voyages
http://o.canada.com/travel/carnival-gives-its-veteran-a-brighter-look-for-its-bahamas-voyages#respondWed, 31 Jan 2018 22:55:34 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766607Although there is much talk about Carnival Cruise Line’s upcoming Carnival Horizon, which debuts this spring in Europe, the line has been quietly paying attention to some of its older but well-loved ships.

I’m wrapping up the last of five days aboard just such a ship: the 2,130-guest Carnival Elation. Launched back in 1998 as Carnival’s second-to-last Fantasy Class ship, Carnival recently put Carnival Elation through a multimillion-dollar makeover that added a brand new deck of 38 staterooms; turned 98 existing oceanview staterooms into balcony cabins; added new dining options, bars and lounges; and most dramatically, completely renovated every single stateroom and passenger corridor.

To demonstrate how dramatic this change has been, consider the ship’s staterooms. Each one, from the lowest-category inside cabin to the top-of-the-line suites, has been completely renovated — featuring new closets, cabinets, wall treatments, desks, vanities, lighting, beds, decor and, most crucially, new electrical and USB outlets.

Carnival has also added the light and airy “Caribbean” decor found aboard all of its vessels. As built, Carnival Elation’s staterooms were dark, adorned with shades of pink, red and black. After the refit, they are bright, vibrant and brand new.

Passenger corridors have also been stripped of their old, dark interior design and refitted with the line’s new Caribbean decor. Relief photos of tropical islands are found along the hallway, in between doors with faux wood texture added to them.

Carnival took a ship that was beginning to look dated and completely redid it. Carnival Elation can run alongside the newest ships in the fleet now.

Other new changes include a brand new Carnival WaterWorks area at the stern, complete with waterslides and splash park. It’s as much of a hit with the kids as the new RedFrog Rum Bar and BlueIguana Tequila Bar, located poolside, are with the adults. Carnival also added Guy’s Burger Joint and the BlueIguana Cantina, serving up made-to-order tacos and burritos.

After five days on board Carnival Elation, I’m enamoured with it. Carnival completely redid the ship’s two main dining rooms with new, modern decor, but left the rest of the ship largely as it was. Her interiors, designed by noted maritime architect Joe Farcus, are wild and whimsical, but the use of backlit stained glass throughout and bold, vibrant colours gives Carnival Elation a warmth that is missing from many newer ships.

Although I came primarily for the ship, five days in the Bahamas isn’t bad either. Sailing out of Jacksonville, Fla., my itinerary offered port calls in the Bahamian capital of Nassau and a full day in paradise on Half Moon Cay, a private island in the Bahamas owned by Carnival Corporation member line Holland America.

It’s hard to not love Half Moon Cay. The waters are impossibly blue, the sand white and powdery; and off in the distance, your ship lies at anchor. Everything you want on the island, from drinks to watersports activities, can be purchased with your stateroom key card, eliminating the need for cash and wallets. You can go horseback riding, snorkelling, cycling or just kick back on the island with a book and a drink. It’s all up to you.

Jacksonville was a pleasant surprise. Although it’s not a place I’d imagined cruising out of, its new, modern airport, picturesque downtown and friendly, easy-to-navigate cruise terminal made cruising from this north Florida city a pleasure.

Carnival Elation sails year-round from Jacksonville on four- and five-day voyages to the Bahamas, with ports of call in Freeport, Nassau, Half Moon Cay and Princess Cays. The ship will also sail a special six-day cruise to the Bahamas and an eight-day voyage to Bermuda in April, along with a one-time week-long run to the Eastern Caribbean in May.

Carnival Elation’s most direct sister ship, Carnival Paradise, goes under the knife in February for a similar refit. You can find her cruising out of Tampa to Florida, the Caribbean and Cuba.

It’s worth checking these “smaller” (though still plenty big) ships out, especially if the idea of sailing with thousands upon thousands of people doesn’t thrill you. Thanks to her new refit, Carnival Elation is here to delight travellers of all ages for decades to come.

Happy cruising.

Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744,www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly atportsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

He came to Canada seeking a better future for his daughter. He brought with him a strong education and promising job experience, one of the more than 170,000 skilled immigrants Canada welcomed in 2016. But unlike the vast majority of them, he’s managed to find fulfilling work in his field.

Originally from Pakistan, Malik is exactly the kind of immigrant Canada should attract: Fluent in English, he has a degree in computer science and a background in IT in the financial sector.

With Toronto sitting on Amazon’s shortlist for its new headquarters, Canada must focus on maximizing our talent pool — especially among our newest citizens.

There’s a long-running Toronto joke that the best place to have a heart attack is in the back of a taxi because chances are the driver is a doctor. In reality, there aren’t many doctors driving cabs — but one fifth of newcomers who end up behind the wheel have bachelor’s or master’s degrees. This illustrates the wider problem: 24 per cent of skilled immigrants who come here can’t work in their field or are underemployed.

“We have these people coming to Canada because they are doctors and lawyers,” says Shabnum Budhwani, senior manager with the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council of Canada. “But there are major barriers once they’re here.”

The waste of potential costs our economy as much as $17 billion a year and causes stress and depression for immigrants. “On one side of the border, you’re a doctor. And on the other, you’re nothing,” Budhwani says.

The waste of potential costs our economy as much as $17 billion a year and causes stress and depression for immigrants.

The problem of aligning certifications for regulated professions, like doctors and lawyers, has been widely discussed and debated. But it’s not the only challenge that keeps so many highly trained professionals like Malik from having relevant and meaningful careers.

The challenges for new Canadians that so often get overlooked are the soft skills, like networking and job hunting know-how. As the old saying goes: It’s not what you know, but who you know. And the formula for a job-winning resumé in Pakistan won’t necessarily work in Canada.

After leaving one of the largest banks in Pakistan, Malik assumed he’d find similar work here. But he didn’t have a network to rely on. More than 80 per cent of jobs are filled with informal connections, so Malik turned to ACCES Employment, an organization that helps internationally trained newcomers find work.

He learned to tailor his resumé for Canadian employers. And he received tips on which areas in the Canadian financial services market are growing. Most importantly, he plugged into a promising network of job contacts.

Within months, Malik landed a job with RBC. Back in Pakistan he was a business analyst; now, he works with retail and small business clients. He’s making use of his skills, and learning new ones. “It’s a completely different role,” he says, “still, it’s within the financial sector and it’s a platform to reposition myself.”

Thanks to a program that bridged the gap between immigration and employment, Malik has meaningful employment, contributing much more to our country than he would behind the wheel of a cab. And he is able to support his daughter in achieving the better life he envisioned for her in Canada.

Every skilled new Canadian deserves the same opportunity.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of theWE movement,which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-bridging-the-gap-between-immigration-and-employment/feed0Global VoicescraigkielburgerStunning itineraries highlight Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ new ultra-luxury exploration vesselhttp://o.canada.com/travel/stunning-itineraries-highlight-hapag-lloyd-cruises-new-ultra-luxury-exploration-vessel
http://o.canada.com/travel/stunning-itineraries-highlight-hapag-lloyd-cruises-new-ultra-luxury-exploration-vessel#respondMon, 29 Jan 2018 20:43:52 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766587A few years ago, river cruises were the hot trend in the cruise industry. While their unprecedented growth still continues, a new wave of cruise ships are hitting the high seas and, in doing so, are creating one of the hottest trends around. I’m talking, of course, about luxury expedition cruises.

Over the next two years, 17 small-ship expedition vessels are scheduled to enter service. That’s huge. To put things in perspective, you need to understand that, traditionally-speaking, most expedition cruise ships travelling to places like Antarctica or the Arctic are older, heavily refurbished ships. But a new wave of luxurious and eco-friendly explorers are on their way, with two in particular poised to make a grand entrance.

Hamburg, Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd Cruises (hl-cruises.com) will debut their new ultra-luxury exploration twins, Hanseatic Inspiration and Hanseatic Nature, in 2019. Hanseatic Nature will offer cruises for the German-speaking market, while Hanseatic Inspiration will cater to international and English-speaking guests on every sailing.

Of the two, it is the 230-guest Inspiration that you should be most excited about.

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises CEO Karl J. Pojer recently revealed new details about Hanseatic Inspiration and her sister at a media event in New York City, including detailed renderings of the ship and her accommodations, as well as a full overview of her inaugural 2019-20 voyages.

I’m particularly impressed with Hanseatic Inspiration’s sailing schedule which is, well, inspiring. It’s probably no surprise that the ship will offer expedition cruises to the Arctic and Antarctica, but the rest of her itineraries are absolutely stunning.

In March and April 2020, for example, Hanseatic Inspiration sails two 17-day Belem-Iquitos cruises through the heart of the Amazon. In April, she cruises from Belem to Nassau for 15 days, and then onward to Boston on a rare, five-day Atlantic cruise.

The itineraries that are going to sell out faster than even Antarctica are Hanseatic Inspiration’s two Great Lakes runs. The first departs from Toronto on June 3, 2020 and continues on to Chicago, sailing to Windsor, Tobermory, Little Current, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Duluth, Mackinac Island and Traverse City. The return voyage from Chicago to Toronto, departing June 17, 2020, offers a similar itinerary. And because Hanseatic Inspiration is an expedition ship, expect plenty of immersive, educational and fun excursions ashore.

Great Lakes cruises are very rare, and these close-to-home journeys are some of the best ways to experience this ship without the added cost (or hassle) of international airfare.

Another itinerary that’s going to get snapped up quickly: the 20-day Toronto to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, voyage that departs (conveniently) on Canada Day 2020. This is my favourite itinerary. It spends a day cruising Lake Ontario before arriving in Montreal, then calls on Tadoussac and sails up the St. Lawrence River for explorations off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. After that, it’s off to the Hudson Strait and the west coast of Greenland before ending in Kangerlussuaq. There’s literally nothing else like this afloat.

The same could be said for Hanseatic Inspiration. The all-luxury ship will feature three on-board restaurants with international gourmet cuisine, offered up with flexible meal times and open-seating arrangements.

An all-new concept has been rolled out for the HanseAtrium, which combines a cool cocktail bar and lounge with an informative, technologically advanced lecture hall where guests can further their knowledge of the natural world they’re sailing through. Plenty of open-deck space aids in that exploration, along with a fully accessible bow area for passengers to enjoy great views during scenic cruising.

There will be six different types of accommodations offered aboard Hanseatic Inspiration, with standard cabins coming in at 226 square feet. All cabins are oceanview, and nearly all will feature their own private French or full step-out balcony.

In keeping with Hapag-Lloyd’s style, Hanseatic Inspiration will be thoughtfully designed. Drawing inspiration from nature, she’ll feature a soothing colour palette and an on-board centre, the Ocean Academy, dedicated solely to education. She’ll be fitted with the highest ice-class hull and environmentally responsible waste treatment facilities.

Hanseatic Inspiration’s maiden voyage takes place in October 2019, when the ship sails from Antwerp, Belgium to Tenerife, Spain.

Bookings for Hanseatic Inspiration’s inaugural 2019-20 season are now open.

Happy cruising.

Visit Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744,www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly at portsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

• MOVIES

Big Release: Winchester (Feb. 2)

Big Picture: Helen Mirren plays Sarah Winchester, the loopy heiress to the Winchester family firearm fortune — and a woman devoted to perpetually building a “gigantic, seven-storey structure with no rhyme or reason” on a remote property 50 kilometres outside of San Francisco. At 500 rooms and counting, we’re told it’s the most “haunted house in the world.” We’re also told the story is “inspired by true events.” Really. Of course, the home has a double secret. It’s less a haunted house and more a haunted prison for vengeful, diabolical souls. Her niece (Sarah Snook) and a brilliant, handsome, no-nonsense doctor (Jason Clarke) get caught up in the spiritual crossfire. Unless the new Ghostbusters make a surprise showing before end of credits, this picture isn’t going to end pretty.

Forecast: Mirren vamps it up in “the house that ghosts built.” What else are you going to do on a Friday night in February? (But I can’t be the only one who would have preferred Groundhog Day 2).

Big Picture: The streaming service spends big money on this 10-episode adaptation of Richard Morgan’s sci-fi tale set in the distant 25th century. By then, the human mind will be digitalized and the wealthy among us will be immortal — body hopping like a game of human musical chairs. Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) stars as a tough-guy freed after 500 years in storage to solve a murder – his permanent ticket out of a computerized prison (if he can solve the case). Expect exposition like, “Your body is not who you are. You shed it like a snake sheds its skin.” It’s like Total Recall meets Blade Runner meets Self/less. Meanwhile, Coach Snoop follows sometime rapper and marijuana aficionado Snoop Dogg as he attempts to coach a youth football team. Yup. Seriously.

Big Picture: The Man who brought sexy back has become a man of the woods. What does that mean? Next to nothing musically. But a lot of promo material involves woods, flowers, fields, horses, rivers, bonfires and flannel. Sure, Timberlake missed the hipster beard and boots movement, which peaked at least two years ago. But mainstream America need now worry. JT hasn’t become a hybrid Johnny Cash and Davy Crockett. His dance-pop is still fool proof and irresistible. There is little country twang to be found. And his lyrics are still largely meaningless – when they’re not downright juvenile. Case in point, debut single “Filthy”: “And what you gonna do with all that meat?” Uh, I dunno, Justin? My answer is: “get scurvy?” But the man can still craft a danceable, addictive ditty.

Forecast: You’ll buy this for the nostalgia factor alone — so you can reminisce about a gentler time when a wardrobe malfunction — and not nuclear war, climate destruction, or a White House that takes the name literally — was the worst thing our southern neighbours had to worry about. To cap off your week of yester-year reflections, JT makes his hotl anticipated return to the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday. (I predict a Janet Jackson surprise appearance).

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-jan-29-winchester-altered-carbon-and-more/feed0Winchesterpostmedianews1Altered CarbonJustin TimberlakeNancy Rosen’s paintings bring artistic edge to Grace and Frankiehttp://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/nancy-rosens-paintings-bring-artistic-edge-to-grace-and-frankie
http://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/nancy-rosens-paintings-bring-artistic-edge-to-grace-and-frankie#respondFri, 26 Jan 2018 22:24:49 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766546Virginia Woolf isn’t the only one who knows the value of having a room of one’s own. On Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, free-spirited Frankie (Lily Tomlin) carves out creative solace in the living Pottery Barn ad that is her pal Grace’s (Jane Fonda) beach house.

While she has a meditation room outfitted with Indonesian art, floor pillows and incense, Frankie’s art studio is where her paintings become pure expressions of herself. Production designer Devorah Herbert tells Architectural Digest that the art featured on the show is the handiwork of Chicago-based artist Nancy Rosen.

“It’s one of the most personal elements on the show,” she says. “We didn’t go to a prop house — we had it all commissioned. It’s all so specific, and being able to handicraft each item every time Frankie has a new piece of artwork or an art show, that is really fun.”

Tomlin reveals that Rosen’s paintings — full of sharp angles, vibrant colours and expressive faces — help her dive into her character. One notable era in Frankie’s artistic career saw her focused on solely painting representations of vaginas.

“Nancy is who Frankie is in terms of her maternal instinct (and) her passion for her work, her family,” Tomlin says. “When I sit in a scene studying a painting, I think, When did I paint this? It’s a memory I’ve forgotten, but it’s just as it should be. It’s just what I intended.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/nancy-rosens-paintings-bring-artistic-edge-to-grace-and-frankie/feed0Lily Tomlin in Grace and Frankiemhank2012How to be a better listener and have meaningful conversationshttp://o.canada.com/life/how-to-be-a-better-listener-and-have-meaningful-conversations
http://o.canada.com/life/how-to-be-a-better-listener-and-have-meaningful-conversations#respondWed, 24 Jan 2018 19:18:29 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766512“Oh, hey! Long time no see! How’s everything going? Good! We should really go for coffee sometime and catch up … All right, byyyeee!”

So goes many a casual encounter, perhaps punctuated with a followup Facebook friend request or half-hearted text exchange that goes nowhere.

In each episode of Hello Goodbye Canada, Curd engages random strangers who are waiting for loved ones or seeing them off in airports. It’s an emotionally charged endeavour: As of this season, the show’s third, he’s spoken with about 1,000 people who’ve shared stories of love, loss, family, friendships and grief.

“I think we undervalue the benefit of connecting with other people,” says Curd, who also teaches a course about his style of empathetic listening to nurses in Houston.

“We’ve traded quality connection for immediate gratification. I hear it from people on the show and here in Houston when I’m talking to nurses. They’re constantly bombarded with texts and emails, but what they crave more than anything else is the opportunity to sit down and have a meaningful conversation with someone.”

Hello Goodbye Canada [CBC]

The key is to relate to the person you’re talking to, and to hold emotional space for them to express themselves.

“You’re looking for opportunities — in listening to what they share and how they share it — to form bridges with them. It’s a real dialogue of respect back and forth, so nobody tries to steal the space or talk over or talk at someone,” says Curd, noting that a typical conversation in filming for Hello Goodbye Canada can last 45 to 90 minutes and yield up to four potential stories.

“I find that people are willing to have a conversation with me where they open up and I treat them with respect and ask questions that are meaningful and that make them think. I’m not prying or trying to be exploitative. I come at it from a real place of curiosity.”

For this season — which airs new episodes until Feb. 2 and, once the Winter Olympics are over, returns on March 2 — Curd and his camera crew taped more than 300 stories. Thirty-six of them will make it to air.

I’m not prying or trying to be exploitative. I come at it from a real place of curiosity.

“I spoke with a young woman waiting for a boyfriend who’s arriving from overseas. In a lot of respects she’s a lot like a normal teenager, but she has been dealing with cancer for most of her teenage life,” says Curd.

“We just had this beautiful conversation about what it was like to be a teenager, to have cancer, to go through all the experiences she’s had and still think about falling in love and being in love and the future. It was a beautiful and frank and mature conversation with somebody who was wise beyond her years.”

He recalls another woman, one from the former Yugoslavia, whose husband was taken away from their home in front of her and her children — a story he calls “haunting.”

“What I know about who I am is so limited if I keep to myself,” Curd says. “It’s only when I take the time to actually connect with other people and hear about their lives that I learn so much about my own life — in terms of putting things into perspective but also trying to figure out who I am as a person.”

3 STEPS TO BEING A BETTER LISTENER

1. Intend to listen. “If you’re going to listen to someone, really intend to listen — which is very different from hearing somebody. To listen to someone is to give them your full undivided attention, to be active in your listening.”

2. Listen with your eyes. “Our eyes are far better at picking up all the subtle non-verbal body language cues that a person gives. A person’s body language tells you much more about how they feel and whether they feel comfortable or uncomfortable about what they’re sharing, certainly more than their words will.”

3. Ask good questions. “A good question is one that’s intended for the other person, not for me to receive information. A really good question is a question that keeps the conversation going. It deepens the sharing that person is doing, it opens up a way of thinking about what they’re sharing that they haven’t thought of before.”

Hello Goodbye Canada airs Fridays on CBC

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/how-to-be-a-better-listener-and-have-meaningful-conversations/feed0Hello Goodbye Canadamhank2012Hello Goodbye CanadaGlobal Voices: Just call it CSI: Congohttp://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-just-call-it-csi-congo
http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-just-call-it-csi-congo#respondTue, 23 Jan 2018 07:14:59 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766482Abducted from their homes one by one in the dead of night, more than 40 girls from the village of Kavumu in eastern Congo were raped, mutilated, and dumped the next morning, barely alive, in nearby fields between 2013 and 2016. The youngest victim was just eight months old.

This past December, 11 militiamen and a high-ranking politician were sentenced to life in prison after an unprecedented trial and landmark verdict. It was the country’s largest successful mass prosecution for sex crimes in history. The case brought hope to a nascent democracy with a weak justice system, aided not by international authorities, but by a non-profit group.

Launched in 2012, the Forensics Training Institute program from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) trains Congolese doctors, police and court officials in forensic investigation—techniques that cracked the Kavumu case.

Though the International Criminal Court is often seen as the venue to deal with crimes against humanity, it should be a measure of last resort and not a default solution. Ideally, every country should be able to handle such cases in its own courts. For nations like DRC — ravaged by civil war and afflicted by poverty — police and justice officials lack the training and resources to effectively investigate and prosecute major crimes.

Rather than outsource to an international body that brings politics with questionable effectiveness, these nations need capacity-building for local authorities.

When girls from Kavumu began arriving at nearby Panzi Hospital in 2013, doctors there knew what to do.

When a sexual assault occurs in Canada, doctors treating survivors rely on a “rape kit” to gather critical evidence. In the Congo, there was no equivalent until PHR introduced tools and training for emergency room doctors. They learned to preserve DNA evidence, and sensitively interview patients. When girls from Kavumu began arriving at nearby Panzi Hospital in 2013, doctors there knew what to do.

In 2015, officers from a newly formed sexual violence unit of the Congolese police launched an investigation into the Kavumu assaults. After training in forensic crime-scene examination, they gathered crucial evidence and identified suspects — the militia led by Frederic Batumike, a local politician. Because a militia was involved, the Congolese military joined the investigation.

Military investigators also received training and equipment to analyze cellphone data and track the suspects’ communications. With support from TRIAL International, a legal NGO, military prosecutors received legal training to present forensic evidence in court, and to outline the data that doctors and police had carefully gathered.

Ripples from the verdict are spreading. Already, observers in neighbouring countries that have experienced mass crimes, like the Central African Republic, are talking about how they can learn from the DRC case, according to Susannah Sirkin, PHR’s Director of International Policy.

Sirkin says the case needs to set a precedent, even outside the country: “One victory is not enough.”

To ensure more such victories, international donors must invest in growing programs, like PHR’s forensic training, that support countries in building their own robust justice systems. Because access to justice is a basic human right.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of theWE movement,which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-just-call-it-csi-congo/feed0A woman covers her face as she describes her rape to a health worker in D.R. Congo.craigkielburgerPop Forecast for Jan. 22: Maze Runner: The Death Cure and morehttp://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-jan-22-maze-runner-the-death-cure-and-more
http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-jan-22-maze-runner-the-death-cure-and-more#respondMon, 22 Jan 2018 07:01:10 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766474Chris Lackner

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

MOVIES

Big release on Jan. 26: Maze Runner: The Death Cure.

Big picture: Sure, the subtitle could double as an indie band, or a wonkish government report on euthanasia. But this is grand finale of the Maze Runner saga, based on James Dashner’s dystopian novels. At its core are Gladers — young, attractive types who awoke in a deadly maze in the original. They’re like Tributes without the hair, makeup and fashion budget, and this franchise is essentially Saw meets Hunger Games meets David and Goliath.

In this instalment, they take the battle against the villainous WCKD in the legendary Last City, which will likely just be another elaborate maze. Aidan Gillen plays the lead baddie of WCKD (i.e. the World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department), which was created to battle “the Flare,” a deadly plague. Then things got ugly. For Game of Throne fans missing Petyr Baelish’s evil smirk, Gillen’s performance will be worth the price of admission. The trailer intones “What are you willing to do to survive and at the same time saving the world?” No pressure, kids. Public advisory: No minotaurs (I think) were hurt during the filming of this trilogy.

Forecast: I can’t be the only one who would have preferred Maze Runner: The Cure, in which Robert Smith leads his legendary band against WCKD.

Big picture: Mosaic, which launched as an interactive smartphone app, promises “a new storytelling experience.” The app is like TV choose-your-own-adventure, allowing users to follow their own characters and plot threads involving a complex murder case — jumping back and forth in time at will to plot their own interactive story and sleuthing.

The series reassembles the app’s scenes into conventional form. This six-part miniseries from director Steven Soderbergh stars Sharon Stone as murder victim Olivia Lake (conjuring shades of her iconic Basic Instinct character). Her co-stars include Garrett Hedlund, Beau Bridges, Paul Reubens, Jennifer Ferrin, Devin Ratray, Michael Cerveris and James Ransone. The miniseries airs throughout the week. Meanwhile, A Futile and Stupid Gesture tells the true story of National Lampoon co-founder Doug Kenney, played by Will Forte.

Forecast: Mosaic’s original format, the app, will be the future of TV. Meanwhile, Netflix’s new biopic is anything but stupid. Anyone who gave us both Animal House and Caddyshack is worth two hours of your viewing time.

Big picture: Django Django helps us escape with rock ’n’ roll psychedelia (along with genre-veering experimentation in dance, pop and jazz beats) in this followup to their 2015 sophomore album. Here’s hoping Marble Skies is a 21st-century full-length version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Meanwhile, Arizona’s ever-dependable wonder group, Calexico “explores the contrast between bright and dark, hope and fear.” Kind of like reading your social-media news feed or watching cable news — only with less dark and fear. Track titles like End of the World with You strike that lyrical balance, while the band’s deft instrumentation supports a fuller, louder, lush soundscape on this effort.

Forecast: Take two.

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-jan-22-maze-runner-the-death-cure-and-more/feed0Maze Runner: The Death Curepostmedianews1A Futile and Stupid GestureJoey Burns of CalexicoSailing cruises an intimate way to see global destinationshttp://o.canada.com/travel/sailing-cruises-an-intimate-way-to-see-global-destinations
http://o.canada.com/travel/sailing-cruises-an-intimate-way-to-see-global-destinations#respondWed, 17 Jan 2018 21:27:43 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766468The word “cruise” is such a broad term. When you think about what constitutes a cruise, most of us probably picture a gigantic ship bobbing around in the Caribbean — and to be sure, that’s probably the largest and most recognizable type of cruise.

What you might not know is that there is another, very different type of cruise that still visits some of the world’s most exotic destinations. And that is a sailing cruise.

There are companies operating sailing ships of all shapes and sizes that cruise the waters of the world, from classy schooners that barely hold a dozen guests to the largest ocean-going tall ships in the world.

Windstar Cruises (cruise.center/windstar/) is a real favourite of mine. The Seattle-based company has a fleet of six ships, three of which are hybrid cruise-sailing vessels. Wind Star, Wind Spirit and the larger Wind Surf are designed to offer all the amenities and comfort of a cruise ship, with the advantage of having sails that can propel them around when conditions allow. Of course, these ships also have regular marine diesel engines that kick in when Mother Nature doesn’t co-operate, but even just the grandeur of having the sails up harkens back to a different time.

My favourite Windstar Cruise memory: sailing out of Visby, Sweden, aboard Wind Spirit a few years back. Not only is Visby one of the most gorgeous little places I’ve ever seen, but the conditions were perfect for sailing. Before long, we were making an easy 12 knots across the sea, lazily cruising over to Warnemunde, Germany.

For those who like their sailing ships to be a little more traditionally styled, it’s hard to beat Star Clippers (starclippers.com). The line has a fleet of three ships: the smaller sisters Star Clipper and Star Flyer, plus the grand dame of the sailing fleet, the massive Royal Clipper.

Although thoroughly modern, Royal Clipper is a fully rigged five-mast tall ship. She’s the largest in the world, and carries a Guinness World Record to back it up. Based on the classic German ship Preussen of 1902, Royal Clipper offers plenty of seagoing romance — especially in the Caribbean, where the lingering sunsets cast an amber glow across her sails and rigging. I’ll never forget sailing away from St. Lucia, at sunset, in a tender boat that the crew lowered to the water for guests, to allow them to watch their ship set sail — literally.

Inside, Royal Clipper boasts some really cool features, like a three-storey atrium with a glass skylight that is actually the underside of the top deck swimming pool. Bonus points, too, for the undersea gymnasium and spa that actually have porthole windows looking out into the depths of the ocean.

One of my favourite sailing experiences is even closer to home. Outer Shores Expeditions (outershores.ca) sends its six-passenger Passing Cloud to some of British Columbia’s most intriguing — and remote — destinations, from the ancient lands of Haida Gwaii to the stunning Great Bear Rainforest and even explorations of Vancouver Island.

Passing Cloud is the embodiment of charm, with polished brass and varnished woodwork, lovingly cared for and restored, at every turn. You won’t find internet access or even cell service onboard. Instead, the emphasis is on total immersion: a cruise designed as much to educate as entertain. Outer Shores has even partnered with Sierra Club BC on two separate sailings this year; an April 28 departure to Northern Vancouver Island from Port McNeill; and a May 13 trip from Bella Bella to the Great Bear Rainforest.

For a really exotic sailing adventure, it’s tough to beat the trips that G Adventures (gadventures.com) has on offer. Their newest sailing itineraries operate on a small, eight-passenger catamaran in Sri Lanka. A week-long itinerary operates roundtrip from Mirissa, while a 14-day land-and-sea combo travels from Mirissa to Negombo.

It’s just one of many sailing adventures that G Adventures offers. The Toronto-based company also operates small-ship sailing cruises in the British Virgin Islands, Greece, the Maldives, Thailand, Cuba, Croatia & Montenegro, and Indonesia.

Sailing offers unique and intimate way to see the world; one that recreates the grandest days of sail without sacrificing comfort.

Happy cruising.

Visit Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744,www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly atportsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

]]>http://o.canada.com/travel/sailing-cruises-an-intimate-way-to-see-global-destinations/feed0ftdc_royalclipper-0511aaronpsaundersYes, you can cruise solo and not get soakedhttp://o.canada.com/travel/yes-you-can-cruise-solo-and-not-get-soaked
http://o.canada.com/travel/yes-you-can-cruise-solo-and-not-get-soaked#respondWed, 17 Jan 2018 19:41:35 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766464When I first started cruising, I typically travelled by myself. But unlike booking flights or a hotel, booking a cruise for one can be an expensive proposition, all because of something known as the “single supplement.”

When you book a cruise as a solo traveller, the cruise line figures, rightly or wrongly, that you’re depriving them of the income they could have had with a second guest in that cabin who might drink like a fish, gamble like a whale, and spend like there’s no tomorrow.

In an effort to recoup those dashed dreams of untold revenue, most cruise lines charge those wishing to have sole occupancy over a stateroom marked for double-occupancy an additional supplement that can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to the equivalent of a second full-fare guest.

Over the holidays, seven different readers contacted me with the exact same question: Which cruise lines are the friendliest when it comes to solo travellers?
The good news is that there are many cruise lines willing to cut solo travellers a break, but it’s all about knowing the rules.

Firstly, if you’re a solo traveller looking for a deal on a balcony stateroom or a suite, forget about it. With very few exceptions, these rooms will always carry a surcharge the equivalent of paying for you and someone else. So let’s leave these top-tier accommodations alone for the moment.

Instead, the friendliest single-supplement fares can be found on inside and oceanview staterooms.

Holland America Line is particularly generous, with one of the lowest single supplement rates of any popular cruise line. For an added roll of the dice, book the cheapest “guarantee” cabin and see what room you’re assigned to — but always be content with what you’ve booked. I used to book inexpensive Inside Guarantee Staterooms and ended up with a low-level oceanview room more than once — all to myself.

Then, there is Norwegian Cruise Line. Every time I write positively about Norwegian, someone always fires off a letter telling me how wrong I am and how bad it is and so on.

Truth is, Norwegian has some great ships going to amazing destinations, and it just happens to be one of the most solo-traveller-friendly lines out there.
In fact, since the launch of Norwegian Epic in 2010, every new Norwegian ship has featured the line’s trendsetting “Studio Staterooms” designed expressly for solo cruisers.

Norwegian throws a touch of exclusivity into these rooms, with cool interior design features and amenities that aren’t repeated elsewhere; keycard-access-only room corridors; and a private lounge to mix and mingle with your fellow solo guests. Best of all: no supplemental fare.

One of my favourite lines, Cunard, recently refitted its transatlantic flagship, Queen Mary 2, with a selection of staterooms designed just for single occupancy.

These rooms are absolutely beautiful, with oversized picture windows, unique design, and plenty of personal space. They also happen to have struck a chord with Cunard’s guests, selling out faster than the line’s lavish suites do. You need to book very far in advance, in most cases, to grab one of these single occupancy staterooms, but what I’ve heard onboard Queen Mary 2 from those who have sailed in them is that they’re among the best deals afloat.

On the other hand, some lines just aren’t going to cut solo travellers much of a break. MSC is one of the least-friendly mainstream cruise lines I’ve encountered when it comes to solo travellers.

Its restrictive booking policies limit which itineraries solos can book, even if an additional supplement is paid.

To make matters worse, some of the itineraries I pulled up during my search seemed to further discourage solo cruisers from booking. Who’s up for a four-day cruise from Durban, South Africa to Mozambique on the second-oldest ship in the fleet?

If you’re looking to travel alone, there are ships and lines that will treat you more favourably than others. Don’t be afraid to shop around. Ask questions.
And get a good travel agent working for you, who can navigate the rules around solo cruising. You may be pleasantly surprised with what they find.

Happy (solo) cruising.

Visit Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744, www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly atportsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

]]>http://o.canada.com/travel/yes-you-can-cruise-solo-and-not-get-soaked/feed0QM2_KC_Single_OceanviewaaronpsaundersGlobal Voices: Empathy in the face of addictionhttp://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-empathy-in-the-face-of-addiction
http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-empathy-in-the-face-of-addiction#respondTue, 16 Jan 2018 22:29:15 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766449Ruston Baldwin took his first drink when he was two years old. His father was an angry man and a drinker himself. He raised Baldwin on beer.

When Baldwin was seven, his mother was diagnosed with a severe case of scleroderma, an autoimmune disorder. Every year, doctors would amputate parts of her hands and feet as her blood stopped circulating. While his mother wasted away and his father drank, Baldwin found comfort in one substance after another, eventually turning to cocaine and heroin.

As fentanyl claims lives on city streets and in suburbs alike, and as governments turn to safe injections sites to protect their citizens, Baldwin’s experiences speak to the conversation Canada needs to have — one that substitutes compassion and care for derision and detention.

“I did it all,” the sober 50-year-old Baldwin says unflinchingly of a lifetime of addiction stemming from early experiences of abuse and neglect.

Now a peer support worker for others struggling with mental health and addiction, his story illustrates the undeniable connection between trauma, mental health and dependence that is too often ignored in favour of judgment or contempt.

In 2016, nearly 3,000 Canadians died from opioid-related overdoses. Final numbers from 2017 aren’t in yet, but experts suggest the total will surpass 4,000. For all the recent media attention on fentanyl, public perception is still skewed. Instead of relying on stigma and stereotypes of addicts as immoral and depraved, we should see them like Baldwin — as people in pain, in need of help, and capable of so much more.

Despite more empathetic talk from policy-makers, harm-reduction sites that can save lives are still scarce. In a mental holdover from the 1980s War on Drugs that left prisons full and lives ruined, addicts are still judged for their circumstances, expected to “just say no” and exert more willpower.

Baldwin wasn’t able to say no. His willpower didn’t stand a chance against his circumstance.

He was fired from every job he ever had and kicked out of every apartment. He spent time living on the streets, passing fake cheques for money to eat or to get high.

Faced with prison time for forgery, Baldwin got the right kind of rehab instead of punishment. He confronted a history of emotional abuse from his father and the pain of watching his mother die. He learned to face his trauma, identify his triggers, have empathy for those who caused him pain and to forgive himself.

“It was meant to be. Every sip, every drug, every experience was preparing me for this,” Baldwin explains of his current role with the Mood Disorder Association of Ontario in Toronto. His journey gives others hope that they too can come out on the other side.

On his daily rounds visiting clients, he travels past a safe injection site in downtown Toronto. From the window of the streetcar, he spies temporary shelters and harm reduction workers armed with naloxone kits. At the telltale signs of addiction, Baldwin reserves judgment. He knows that trauma can be healed.

“I feel there’s hope,” he tells us, giving us hope in turn.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of theWE movement,which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

Rolling Stones, You’re So Cold (1980). An underrated track from the Emotional Rescue album. So cold like an ice cream cone? My hand just froze? She was born in an arctic zone? Yep, that covers cold. Mick Jagger even sings one “c-c-c-cold” with a shiver-stutter.

The Icicle Works. No particular song, but it’s a great band name for winter. The early ‘80s group from Liverpool, England, hit No. 19 here in 1984 with the single Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream).

Vanilla Ice [PNG Merlin Archive]

Kate Bush, Under Ice (1985). As everyone remembers, I mentioned this song in the Halloween mash-up story. It’s both scary and cold: A chilling account of a skater on a lake falling through the ice.

Joe Jackson, Lullaby (1994). It’s a song about writer’s block, but Jackson’s simile is dead of winter: “I watch my pen as though / My fingers could shatter like icicles / And before my eyes / Lie glittering and useless on a field of snow.”

Madonna, Frozen (1998). She’s a long way from Holiday: “You’re frozen / When your heart’s not open.” Madonna’s trying to melt the subject’s heart, but I don’t know if he/she is having it. Dark, deliberately dreary video, too.

Hank Williams, Cold Cold Heart (1951). Another attempt to melt someone’s heart. Hank was a legend and it’s tough to beat the original version, but Norah Jones’ jazzy take from her debut full-length album Come Away with Me also resonates.

Muddy Waters, Cold Weather Blues (1964). A stone slow, mesmerizing acoustic track. For me, this song evokes the times I’ve had to rise early in the winter … and it’s cold and still dark outside. I’m going back to bed, and as Muddy says, “Let this winter pass on by.”

White Stripes, In the Cold Cold Night (2003). The minimal instrumentation sets the tone in this haunting song. Vocalist Meg White sounds like she’s just come into the studio after a long walk in the cold, cold night. The night is cold, but at least in this song someone’s getting warmed up.

Tragically Hip, The Lonely End of the Rink (2006): As a former hockey writer who covered many minor games over many winters in many small rinks, I can verify that it can get very cold indeed at the lonely end of the rink.

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

MOVIES

Big releases on Jan. 19: 12 Strong; Den of Thieves

Big Picture: No, 12 Strong is not the latest Ocean’s Eleven sequel. But you’ll get to see Danny Ocean’s sister (Sandra Bullock) soon enough in Ocean’s Eight, coming June 2018.

12 Strong tells the “declassified” untold story of America’s “Horse Soldiers,” an elite Special Forces squad sent into Afghanistan after 9/11. Chris Hemsworth plays the team’s captain, which brings up another bombshell: America sent Thor into Afghanistan as part of the War on Terror? (And, more importantly, does Captain American know about this?) Hemsworth’s soldiers join forces with a Northern Alliance general against the Taliban and al-Qaida. Outnumbers and outgunned, the epic true story can be summed up as “they ride horses against tanks.” Expect classic war movie lines like, “there is no playbook here, we are going to have to write it ourselves.”

Meanwhile, rapper 50 Cent enters a Den of Thieves in this crime drama focused on the interconnected word of L.A.’s top cops and robbers. When the latter plan an unprecedented heist on the Federal Reserve Bank, things get explosive. It’s like Ocean’s Eleven meets Heat meets Fast and Furious. Gerard Butler plays “Big Nick, the original gangsta cop.” He wants us to know how badass and “against the rulebook” he is, so he constantly tells the heist crew things like, “You’re not the bad guys, we are.”

Forecast: 50 Cent has cleared the path. I predict that, by 2019, Justin Bieber will be a rom-com star with all his movie titles named after his greatest hits: Baby, Sorry, Love Yourself, Never Say Never, Boyfriend, As Long As You Love Me, One Less Lonely Girl. Much like Elvis before him, Bieber will essentially play himself. Long live the new … err … king?

Edgar Ramirez, left, and Ricky Martin star in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story []

Big Picture: Ryan Murphy’s crime anthology series gets fashionable in undressing the 1997 murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace (played by Edgar Ramirez) in Miami. Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin co-star. The story begins with the fashion guru’s death — and then jumps backward to tell the tale of how his death was orchestrated. (I’m hoping for a CGI guest appearance by Peter Falk’s Columbo). This season is based on Maureen Orth’s non-fiction book Vulgar Favors.

Meanwhile, Fox is the latest network trying to pump more life in the procedural medical drama with The Resident, starring Emily VanCamp (Revenge), Matt Czuchry (The Good Wife) and Canuck character actor Bruce Greenwood. Told from the point of view of a resident, the series exposed the morally grey and challenging world behind all those white coats. The series bows after the NFC Championship Game, so it may not start on time, before moving to its normal Monday 9 p.m. timeslot on the Jan 22 (where it will go head-to-head with football if it stats on life support until the 2018-19 season). Expect lines like, “What they don’t teach us in medical school is that there are so many ways to do harm” and marketing taglines like, “they have the ability to save lives, they have the ability to cover up.”

Big Picture: Canadian indie pop-rock and hip-hop. Two different worlds that produce two of Canada’s top singer-songwriters. Oddly enough, singer-songwriter Bahamas – a.k.a. Afie Jurvanen – found himself inspired by hip hop on the latest record … even if you can’t necessarily hear too much of his musical muse. He told Billboard that Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West were among his recent inspirations. Already effortlessly blending folk, rock and soul … why not toss another genre into the mix? In a statement about the new album, Jurvanen said: “I wrote songs about having success, having kids, and having depression. I wrote songs about going on tour, going back in time and going in circles. I wrote songs about my other worldly wife, my jerk dad and my garbage relationship with my brother. Crazy right?!”

No need for explanations, buddy; I could listen to Bahamas write and sing about paint drying or chicken thawing on the counter. Meanwhile, Canadian hip-hop sharpshooter Cadence Weapon has finally reloaded. The acclaimed rapper (two Polaris Prize shortlists) and former Edmonton poet laureate release his first effort since 2012’s Hope in Dirty City.

Forecast: In keeping with the title of his first, new single, Bahamas can Do No Wrong. And Cadence’s voice will finally be heard for a larger commercial breakthrough.

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-jan-15-12-strong-the-assassination-of-gianni-versace-and-more/feed012 Strongpostmedianews1The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime StoryEarthtones by Canadian singer-songwriter Bahamas.Global Voices: Make 2018 count for morehttp://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-make-2018-count-for-more
http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-make-2018-count-for-more#respondTue, 09 Jan 2018 06:13:43 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766358Another holiday season of giving is gone. You’ve made your annual donation, and delivered cans to the local food bank. You’ve got your good karma sorted out for the year — right?

One-third of charitable donations in Canada are made in December. But the needs of others don’t cease when we put away the ornaments. Did you know, come January, millions of Canadians and Americans lose their jobs, putting pressure on shelters? Did you know there are more orphaned kittens in the spring and more hungry schoolchildren in the summer? As you make New Year’s resolutions, consider how the needs in your community peak throughout the year.

There is more than one season of need. There should be multiple seasons of giving.

January is National Mentoring Month. Why not kick off the year by becoming a role model? In addition to its one-on-one mentoring, Big Brothers and Sisters also runs group programs. With Go Girls! and Game On!, volunteers lead groups of 12- to 14-year-olds in fitness activities, and teach healthy eating habits and communication skills. The eight- to 10-week program is tied to the school year, so every January (and again in September), Big Brothers and Sisters is on the hunt for volunteers for just two hours per week.

January is also the month of buyer’s remorse — even for furry friends given as presents but returned to animal shelters. Humane Societies and other caregivers need funds, pet food and volunteers to walk dogs on cold winter days. Spring brings “kitten season.” Shelters are inundated with thousands of newborn felines needing food and veterinary care.

As spring warms to summer, some kids can’t wait to escape the classroom. For others, the end of the school year also means the end of school breakfast and lunch programs. Families who rely on the programs turn to food banks to ensure their children have enough to eat. Consider supporting your local food bank after the frost, with food items and funds, and even a few volunteer hours to help sort and deliver donations.

Survivors of domestic abuse will often wait until school’s out to leave their partners, to give their children some stability before their lives are turned upside down, according to Women’s Shelters Canada. Come June, short-term women’s shelters especially need financial support and donated items like diapers and women’s sanitary products. You can find and support local shelters through Sheltersafe.ca.

If you want to help vulnerable young people have a better summer, YMCA is always on the hunt for counsellors and support staff to help run its camps for low-income children and youth. Coach a YMCA children’s basketball or soccer class, or teach swimming if you have your certification. Basically, you can relive the summer camps of your own youth.

These are broad national trends. Every community, and every community organization, will have its own unique needs and timetables. Resources like your local United Way and community centres can help connect you with the causes in your neighbourhood that need your support throughout the year.

‘Tis the season of giving — all year long.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of the WE movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-make-2018-count-for-more/feed0Shelters always need food and also volunteers to walk dogs on cold winter dayscraigkielburgerSpring brings “kitten season,” flooding shelters with little cats needing food and attention.Wave Season’s perks may mean better deal picks for 2018http://o.canada.com/travel/wave-seasons-perks-may-mean-better-deal-picks-for-2018
http://o.canada.com/travel/wave-seasons-perks-may-mean-better-deal-picks-for-2018#respondMon, 08 Jan 2018 23:26:42 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766395Returning from a recent cruise, I sat in the busy terminal in Miami International Airport and decided it was time to answer some reader emails. Most were quite nice, but there were a handful that made me glad I don’t write about politics.

I mean, this is cruising! Surely, this is supposed to be fun?

The interesting thing is that I started out just like you: reading Ports and Bows in the newspaper every Saturday. One day, after years of taking cruises as my preferred vacation, I left my career in the animation industry in Vancouver and started writing about ships and the sea. I certainly didn’t do it for the money, let me tell you. I did it because I genuinely love cruising — and this was always the most exciting time of year for me to book a cruise.

We’re in the midst now of what the cruise industry calls “Wave Season.” If you’re not familiar with it, Wave Season is a great incentive period in which cruise lines try to drum up new bookings by offering some great deals and perks to those who book cruises during this period, which typically extends well into January and February. Call it the cure for the post-Holiday blues.

In the old days, price drops were the most common perk, but today, cruise lines offer something even better: added-value incentives. A cruise line might throw in the gratuities or take the booking deposit down to something absurdly affordable. Some lines might have complimentary drink packages or dining experiences, while others still will dangle the free Wi-Fi carrot to see who nibbles.

The thing with Wave Season is that sometimes you’ll get the best deals by trying a line you’ve never sailed with before, or a ship you’re not familiar with. In fact, the way to get the best Wave Season deal is to be as flexible as possible. Pick a week (or two) that you want to travel during, and have a look online to see which lines are offering what during that time frame. These specials will be listed on cruise line’s individual websites, or on a larger site like Expedia CruiseShipCenters.

There are almost always conditions, so read the fine print or ask your favourite travel agent for help.

A few tips for getting the best Wave Season deals:

Try something new

Either a new ship, a new line or a new destination. I’ve met folks who have sailed 47 times, but on the same line to the same place. Which is fine and dandy, but what else is out there? You may “leave” your favourite cruise line only to discover one that’s just as enjoyable has been waiting there all along.

Book well in advance

Sure, there are last-minute cruise deals out there, but that last-minute airfare is a killer. Unless you live a block or two away from your embarkation port (I’m looking at you, Vancouverites), that last-minute deal will probably balance out when you throw the cost of air and hotel in. Instead, book early: you’ve got longer to pay for your cruise, and more time to properly research hotel and airfare options.

Don’t fear the megaship

Just because a ship holds 5,000 passengers doesn’t mean it offers a miserable cruise experience. And for you big-ship folks, don’t be afraid to try a small ship. That whole “small is beautiful” catchphrase is completely accurate, particularly when it comes to the worlds of expedition, river and niche sailing cruises.

Explore Canada

There are so many cool Canadian companies that offer cruises right in our own backyard, from Outer Shores Expeditions (outershores.ca) and Maple Leaf Adventures (mapleleafadventures.com) on the West Coast to Adventure Canada (adventurecanada.com)’s explorations of Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as the Canadian Arctic. And more mainstream cruise lines are beginning to focus on Canadian ports of call, like Seabourn’s (cruise.center/seabourn) new B.C.-centric itineraries in Alaska, and Holland America Line’s (cruise.center/holland) extended season in the Maritimes.

Finally, keep on emailing. Let me know what you like and what you don’t like, or if you’ve got a ship or a line you want me to cover but haven’t yet. I’m always up for a good maritime challenge.

Happy (New Year) cruising.

Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744, www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly atportsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

]]>http://o.canada.com/travel/wave-seasons-perks-may-mean-better-deal-picks-for-2018/feed0Unknown-2aaronpsaundersImmerse yourself aboard Viking visit to Cubahttp://o.canada.com/travel/immerse-yourself-aboard-viking-visit-to-cuba
http://o.canada.com/travel/immerse-yourself-aboard-viking-visit-to-cuba#respondMon, 08 Jan 2018 21:30:33 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766391Cuba has become one of the Caribbean’s most popular cruising destinations, but that doesn’t mean that every cruise line offers the same experience on this fascinating island. I just returned from a week-long cruise to Cuba aboard Viking Cruises’ (cruise.center/vikingsea) brand new Viking Sun. With just 930 guests on board, we sailed on an itinerary that offered a unique perk: three days spent in Cienfuegos, Cuba.

Viking has crafted its Cuban itineraries differently than other lines, and this is to Viking’s advantage. It is easier for guests to complete customs and security formalities in Cienfuegos (believe me, I’ve spent hours trying to disembark in Havana on other ships), but the entire process here — from tender to motorcoach — took just over 30 minutes.

By calling on Cienfuegos, Viking can offer excursions not only to this charming seaside town on the country’s southern coast, but also to the nearby city of Trinidad.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Trinidad is absolutely fascinating. A full, eight-hour tour takes guests through Cuba’s rolling hills and valleys to this historic colonial town, with its cobblestone streets and brightly coloured buildings that hearken back to the glory days of the sugar cane trade.

The town, which dates back to 1514, seems to have changed little in the intervening years. I watched as a horse-drawn carriage made its way past Plaza Mayor, the city’s central square, rolling into the distance in a cloud of dust, followed by a lovingly-restored 1950s Chevrolet. It’s a true time warp that makes Havana look positively modern.

Speaking of Havana, those wanting to see the city aren’t left out, with a full 12-hour excursion to the Cuban capital, or the option to participate in a full day-and-a-half tour that includes an overnight stay in Havana at a five-star hotel and a performance at the famous Tropicana cabaret.

If you’re wondering how much these excursions cost, I have good news: every one of Viking’s Cuban adventures ashore, from the walking tour of Cienfuegos to the overnight trip to Havana, are entirely complimentary.

What really impressed me, though, was how immersive the on-board experience is. Lectures on Cuban history were provided almost daily by insightful guest speakers, and relevant films were shown on the Pool Deck, where wireless headphones ensure you can hear the movie while things are kept quiet for those who’d rather read.

The highlight, though, was an on-board performance by Cuban entertainers from the El Guajirito group, which included musicians from the legendary Buena Vista Social Club. Between the included experiences ashore and the great on-board entertainment, Viking has done a wonderful job of making its Cuban itineraries a true cultural immersion.

Viking Sun is the fourth ship in the line’s rapidly growing ocean-cruise fleet. A fifth — Viking Orion — is on the way in the new year.

Viking doesn’t tinker a lot with its ship’s interior designs. There’s just no need. From the soothing poolside Wintergarden to the two-story, forward-facing Explorer’s Lounge and kilometres of open deck space, these ships exude plenty of hygge — the Scandinavian word that describes a feeling of coziness. Everything about these ships reaches out to gently hug your senses, from the wool throws placed over chairs to the on-board collection of books that turn the entire ship into a floating library.

The good news is that Viking’s brand of shipboard coziness works just as well in a hot destination like Cuba as it does in the chilly reaches of northern Norway.

By the time you read this, Viking Sun will be off on her next adventure: a massive, 141-day World Cruise calling on 64 ports of call in 35 countries before her guests disembark in May in London. It is a first for Viking, and it sold out in the blink of an eye. Viking Sun will head out on the World Cruise circuit again in 2019.

If that’s a little out of reach, Viking repeats its Cultural Cuba itineraries from Miami next November aboard Viking Sun’s sister ship, Viking Star, and additional departures in January and February of 2019. These cruises still include the three-day stop in Cienfuegos, but also add a day call to the historic city of Santiago de Cuba.

Happy cruising!

Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744, www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly atportsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

]]>http://o.canada.com/travel/immerse-yourself-aboard-viking-visit-to-cuba/feed0Unknown-1davepottingersunprovinceMSC plots 2019 North America, Caribbean voyageshttp://o.canada.com/travel/msc-plots-2019-north-america-caribbean-voyages
http://o.canada.com/travel/msc-plots-2019-north-america-caribbean-voyages#respondMon, 08 Jan 2018 21:23:13 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766387This week, I have to give a tip of the hat to MSC Cruises, which has just announced three new itineraries from New York for the spectacular new MSC Meraviglia (mer-a-veel-eah) when she arrives on the shores of North America in late 2019.

If you haven’t already heard about MSC Cruises, that’s going to change over the next few years. The world’s largest privately owned cruise line already dominates in both Europe and South America, and has been slowly making inroads in North America (specifically the Caribbean) for the last decade. Now, it is unleashing its newest and most high-tech cruise ships on North American guests at an unprecedented pace.

The line already has a fleet of 14 superbly designed megaships, with another two on the way. These range from the smaller, more intimate 1,984-guest sisters, MSC Lirca and MSC Opera; to the high-tech 4,488-guest MSC Meraviglia and her newest fleetmate, MSC Seaside. The latter, MSC’s most innovative ship to date, is making her way across the Atlantic as I write this, bound for her new home in Miami.

That MSC is now adding MSC Meraviglia to North American departures — to join MSC Seaside and MSC Divina — for the winter of 2019-20 is no secret, but her new departures from New York are definitely worth taking note of.

“New York has been a market that MSC Cruises has been exploring for a number of years,” said Rick Sasso, chairman of MSC Cruises USA. “We are thrilled that for the first time in MSC Cruises history, we are now able to offer sailings from this important region and meet the expectations of both our travel agent partners and guests.”

These three new itineraries — all of which go on sale Jan. 2 — explore Canada & New England and the east coast of the Americas, and are great options for those looking for a big-ship experience with an international flair. MSC has a strong following in Europe, so expect the on-board crowd to hail from many different countries.

First up are two 10-night Canada & New England voyages that depart roundtrip from New York aboard MSC Meraviglia.

The first voyage, departing Oct. 8, 2019, will visit Canadian ports exclusively, calling on Sydney, N.S.; Corner Brook, N.L.; Charlottetown, P.E.I.; along with an overnight call on Quebec City.

MSC Meraviglia’s second North American voyage, on Oct. 18, 2019, offers a mix of the Canadian and American Maritimes, stopping at Bar Harbor, Maine; Saint John, N.B.; Halifax and Sydney, N.S.; Portland, Maine; and Boston.

Finally, cruisers can depart on Oct. 28, 2019 for a 13-night exploration of the eastern seaboard, sailing from New York to Miami via the Caribbean. On this cruise, MSC Meraviglia will stop at Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Fort de France, Martinique; Bridgetown, Barbados; Saint George, Grenada; Willemstad, Curaçao; and Oranjestad, Aruba, before arriving in Miami.

From there, she will begin her inaugural season of voyages to the Caribbean, joining fleetmates MSC Divina and MSC Seaside in offering a multitude of voyages to the Eastern and Western Caribbean.

Departing Sundays, MSC Meraviglia will primarily sail week-long cruises to the Western Caribbean on two separate itineraries. The first of these will include calls on Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Mexico and the Bahamas; while the second itinerary will feature ports in Mexico, Honduras, Belize and the Bahamas.

If you look online, MSC gets a rough ride in the Caribbean from cruisers who expect the line to be exactly like Carnival or Princess and are surprised to find daily programs offered in a multitude of languages and cuisine that caters to a more international audience. The line makes no secret of its European heritage, and nor should it.

My own experience aboard MSC in the Caribbean a few seasons ago was one filled with good food and great European niceties, like made-on-board gelato and some of the best coffee at sea. Entertainment tends to be more visual than other lines (a nod to the different languages spoken by guests) but was very high quality.

With MSC bringing bigger-and-better ships to the shores of North America, it’s like having a little slice of Europe in the Caribbean.

Happy cruising.

Portsandbows.com, sponsored by Expedia CruiseShipCenters, 1-800-410-4744, www.cruise.center, for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Aaron Saunders may be contacted directly atportsandbowsaaron@gmail.com

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” but these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

MOVIES

Big releases on Jan. 12: The Commuter; Paddington 2.

Big picture: Liam Neeson has thwarted terrorists, Siths and Greek gods. But this film sees him facing his most vile nemesis yet: The Commuter.

“Most of us ride this train every day, but how much do we really know about each other?” Liam Neeson’s gravelly-voiced businessman-turned-action-hero lends the line added melodrama. Neeson’s new flick finds him trapped on a commuter train with an endangered witness, criminals and a hostage situation that rapidly gets … err … derailed. It’s like Murder on the Orient Express meets Speed and Speed 2.

Meanwhile, Paddington 2 is the family-friendly sequel that wasn’t deemed good enough to watch at Christmas. This is for everyone who has ever wanted to watch a villainous Hugh Grant try to outwit a talking bear in a blue coat and red hat.

Forecast: I would have preferred Paddington 2: Meet Ted, in which the innocent bear is old schooled by the potty-mouthed, amoral teddy bear. I also predict Neeson’s next project will be an action affair called The Dog Walker: “Most of you poop in this park every day, but how much do we really know about each other.”

David Bowie []

TV

Big events: David Bowie: The Last Five Years (Jan. 8, HBO Canada); The Launch (Jan. 10, CTV).

Big picture: This Bowie doc looks at the music legends final, prolific years of life — two new albums (The Next Day and Blackstar) as well as Lazarus, a Broadway musical. Bowie’s brilliant musical mind feels like it gets a second life in the hands of director Francis Whately. The HBO original includes behind-the-scenes footage of Ziggy Stardust himself. As one interviewee puts it, “he offered an alternative to people for generations to come.” How many people can claim that as an epitaph?

Meanwhile, The Launch is a new Canadian music-reality TV series promising to “deliver a new platform” for homegrown artists — even as the big music studios march onward towards irrelevance and bankruptcy. Shania Twain mentors in the premiere. In each episode, five up-and-coming artists compete for the opportunity to record — and perform — a new song written by a big-name producer or songwriter … all, of course, while being mentored by the likes of Twain. In a compelling twist and immediate payoff, the mentors decide each week which version of the song will be released across the country. World-renowned music mogul Scott Borchetta co-created the series, and is the fixture amid a rotating cast of A-list mentors, including Fergie and Alessia Cara.

Forecast: The Launch won’t find us a new Bowie, but it deserves to tout its own horn for trying to reinvent a tired TV genre.

Big Picture: Anderson East returns with more Alabama-bred rhythm-and-blues. Meanwhile, popular rockers the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (my pick for one of the top 10 pretentious-sounding band names of all time) deliver new tunes with titles likes Spook, King of Bones and Haunt.

Forecast: BRMC will reveal that its lead singer is, in fact, a 15-year-old teenage boy who wears a lot of black. Meanwhile, a money-hungry producer will find unreleased Bowie studio cuts in the near future. We haven’t said our last farewells to the icon.

I’m not a skater. By the time I strapped on skates as an adult it was clear that I would never shine on the ice.

But I love to watch people skate — especially people who move with grace and speed, and who in their youth took to the ice like ducks to water.

Ontario’s Paul Harbridge captures that elegance in his text for When the Moon Comes, published by Tundra Books, and the paintings by Matt James perfectly complement this nostalgic paean to Canadian winters and the pleasures a rural pond can offer young hockey players.

Dedicated to Harbridge’s father “who lived the story,” it tells of farm kids eager to test the ice on a beaver flood in the woods. Arthur, one of the boys, is de facto leader. “We have to wait for the moon,” he tells his impatient friends. When they worry about a heavy snowfall, he sets their minds at rest: “It’s okay. Our ice is waiting for us under the snow.”

They trust his judgment, and when it’s time, they leave their respective farm homes and trudge through the snow, hockey sticks and shovel in hand. They take turns clearing the ice, play their game until one of them shoots too hard and the puck “flies underneath the powdery snow.” Then they gather around the fire they’ve built, melt snow to make tea, and eat “toasty sandwiches” until it’s time for the trek home.

Just as Roch Carrier and Sheldon Cohen in 1980 created a classic with The Hockey Sweater, so Paul Harbridge and Matt James this year have added a worthy companion volume.

In lyrical terms, Harbridge writes about the sights and sounds of this moonlit adventure on ice; James brings the words to life in his paintings, adding mood and movement, cold and warmth, colour and quiet tension as the odd moose makes an appearance.

This book could not be more Canadian! Just as Roch Carrier and Sheldon Cohen in 1980 created a classic with The Hockey Sweater, so Paul Harbridge and Matt James this year have added a worthy companion volume. For all ages.

Those kids tramping home after expending their energy on the ice might have welcomed a chance to stay in hockey mode with a story or two before bedtime. Toronto’s Meg Braithwaite has just the thing for them: Her book 5-Minute Hockey Stories, illustrated by Nick Craine, opens with a story about a young P.K. Subban, skating on the ice at Nathan Phillips Square with his father at night, and how those memories stayed with him even when he grew up and became an NHL defenceman.

All 12 stories are based on real events, with “certain imagined elements” in the retelling; they include fun facts about the Stanley Cup, an explanation of how the Zamboni works, a story about Mario Lemieux’s mom turning her living room floor into a skating rink, and an account of the six-hour NHL game played at the Montreal Forum in 1936. Each story can be read aloud in about five minutes, and Craine’s plentiful illustrations will hold the interest of even the youngest listener. Best for ages five to 12.

Lines, by Korea’s Suzy Lee, is a wordless picture book that not only celebrates the joys of drawing lines on paper but also of heading out on the ice and carving lines, both straight and flowery, with skates. Illustrated in limited colour, our young figure skater does an impressive job of making her mark on the ice, until she stumbles after a jump and ends up in a crumpled heap. A couple of pages later and the artist has decided our skater deserves another chance; she’s sitting on the ice, her red tuque beside her, and eventually she’s joined by other kids — and a dog! Lee pulls away for a long view on the next spread, and we see that the scenario is playing itself out on a frozen pond filled with various kids of all ages, dressed in garments touched with red and green. Aimed at four to eight, but really for all ages.

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

Big picture: Mulder and Scully are back (yes, again) to solve more paranormal mysteries. Maybe they can solve the mystery of why most of the 2016 reboot was so mediocre?

The 10-episode 11th season brings back David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in their iconic roles, but it learned some valuable lessons. Only two episodes fit into the show’s ever-confusing and contradictory alien mythology, which means eight episodes will be standalone mysteries (a.k.a.: the series at its best).

Meanwhile, the single-camera workplace comedy takes to the skies by focusing on the crew and repeat passengers of a regular weekend round-trip flight between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The cast includes Dylan McDermott and Ed Weeks. If only Leslie Nielsen was still with us to make a cameo as Airplane!’s Dr. Rumack, and spout deadpan lines like, “The life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing: finding someone back there who can not only fly this plane, but who didn’t have fish for dinner.”

Finally, writer/producer Ryan Murphy tackles a simple procedural for once — with no Glee clubs or ghouls in site. New series 9-1-1 follows first responders (police, paramedics and firefighters) and co-stars Angela Bassett, Peter Krause and Connie Britton.

Forecast: By X-Files 12th season, Mulder and Scully will be investigating Marvel mutants, magical broomsticks brought to life by a bumbling sorcerer’s apprentice, and why Donald Duck doesn’t wear pants. With Walt Disney’s recently announced US$52-billion purchase of 21st Century Fox, Mickey Mouse and company effectively own the majority of fictional characters created since 1930.

Spencer Locke stars in Insidious: The Last Key, []

MOVIES

Big release: Insidious: The Last Key (Jan. 5).

Big picture: The toughest part of being a paranormal investigator is bringing your work home. Dr. Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye), a seasoned parapsychologist, faces off against a fearsome bogeyman in her own family home. Let’s put it this way: The clawed spirit makes Freddy Krueger look like he’s wearing safety gloves. To beat the cunning evil, Dr. Rainier will need to venture “deeper into the Further” — a ghoulish purgatory of lost souls that makes the Upside Down in Stranger Things seem cheerful and bright in comparison.

Forecast: There’s no place like home for the holidays — unless your Dr. Rainier. Am I the only one who’d like to see Hollywood (for once) start their new year movie calendar with a couple of comedies? Maybe an inspiring documentary about people who actually keep their new year’s resolutions to go to the gym.

Big picture: Nothing new this week, so let’s look at three reasons to keep your ears tuned in the new year. Bruce Springsteen is expected to release a new album influenced by California pop of the 1970s, much of it written before his most recent studio effort, Wrecking Ball. That could mean less politics than you’d expected from The Boss’s first album of the Trump era.

Meanwhile, Kanye has been teasing a new album called Turbo Grafx 16 (one of his favourite gaming systems) since 2016. A return to the spotlight, and a likely resurrection to his cancelled tour, would seem to make a new album well-timed.

Finally, Jack White has described his first new solo album since 2014 as “good gardening music or roofing music or, you know, back-alley stabbing music.” (He was joking; we think. Either way. we want to hear the album.)

Forecast: The Boss will live up to his name; Jack White will begin going by the nickname The Supervisor; Kanye will get jealous and start going by Emperor God Boss Triple Stamped It No Erasies.

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-jan-1-the-x-files-insidious-the-last-key-and-more/feed0Gillian Anderson, left, and David Duchovny in The X-Filespostmedianews1Insidious: The Last KeyBruce SpringsteenLA to Vegas a quirky new comedy set in the skyhttp://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/la-to-vegas-a-quirky-new-comedy-set-in-the-sky
http://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/la-to-vegas-a-quirky-new-comedy-set-in-the-sky#respondFri, 29 Dec 2017 21:21:21 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766300Ed Weeks knows that many annoyances that can happen during a flight — like crying babies, armrest battles or, if you’re Chrissy Teigen, turning around four hours in because someone boarded the wrong plane. But one thing gets him particularly riled up.

“I get frustrated when there’s a headphone jack and you don’t know where to put your plug,” he says. His co-star Kim Matula lets loose a peel of laughter.

“It’s an old-fashioned one, and my one doesn’t fit!” he says.

“That’s what she said!” Matula quips. They both devolve into giggles, and speculate on Matula’s worst flight experience.

“There was that time you punched that passenger,” Weeks jokes.

“I did. Right in the face,” deadpans Matula. “No — that’s a lie. I’ve missed flights, which was my fault. I was a little hungover and I missed a flight. Had to reschedule that one.”

Weeks and Matula are discussing their new comedy LA to Vegas, about a flight crew that works the 55-minute flights every weekend between the two titular cities. Matula plays a frustrated flight attendant, and Weeks is a regular passenger.

Kim Matula, left, and Ed Weeks in LA to Vegas [Fox]

The cast also includes Dylan McDermott as Captain Dave, not to be confused with Dermot Mulroney as rival pilot Captain Steve. Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Steven Levitan (Modern Family) are executive producers of the show, which debuts Tuesday on City/Fox.

“There are different guest stars and different stories each week,” says Weeks. “And everybody’s going to Vegas for something different — to gamble, to get married, to get divorced, to strip. It’s a great melting pot.”

Weeks is pulling double-duty on TV this season, as he also stars as OB/GYN Jeremy Reed in the final season of The Mindy Project (debuting Jan. 4 on City). Matula is fresh off Lifetime’s acclaimed drama UnReal, in which she played a contestant on a Bachelor-type reality show.

Both have trekked to Vegas before, but the inflight experience — with its giddy anticipation and sense of serendipitous community — is relatively new.

“I’ve driven several times, but I’ve done the flight only once,” says Matula. “Vegas just provides so many crazy random people. I should do the flight more often just for fun.”

“I flew there once and then we drove back,” Weeks says.

“That’s how I feel,” Matula says. “When I want to leave Vegas, I need to leave Vegas ASAP. Like when you’re done, you’re done.”

LA to Vegas debuts Tuesday, Jan. 3, on City/Fox

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/la-to-vegas-a-quirky-new-comedy-set-in-the-sky/feed0Kim Matula, left, and Ed Weeks in LA to Vegasmhank2012Kim Matula, left, and Ed Weeks in LA to Vegas25 ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve around the worldhttp://o.canada.com/life/25-ways-to-celebrate-new-years-eve-around-the-world
http://o.canada.com/life/25-ways-to-celebrate-new-years-eve-around-the-world#respondThu, 28 Dec 2017 20:21:19 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766283Toodle-oo, 2017! With high hopes for peace and prosperity, good luck and love, people around the world are getting ready to ring in the new year. This is how they’ll be celebrating in 24 countries (and one U.S. territory — here’s to a better year ahead, Puerto Rico)

Argentina: Pile your plate high with beans on New Year’s Eve, and you’ll have good luck. Some people also carry suitcases around their homes in the hopes of travelling more in the year ahead.

Austria: Whoever finds the charm hidden in a suckling pig will have good luck — though it’s too bad the luck for the pig itself seems to have run out. In the dessert course, peppermint ice cream will presumably stretch your wallet in the new year as much as your waistband.

Bahamas: Legend has it that the Junkanoo festival started in the late 18th century, when slaves were allowed to leave plantations to celebrate Christmas together. It happens on both Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, running from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. It’s a loud and lively affair, with dancers, elaborate costumes and musicians beating goatskin drums and blowing cow whistles.

Belgium: Children write letters to their parents on New Year’s Day, using paper decorated with cherubs, angels and coloured roses. And who says only humans celebrate the turn of the calendar? Farmers bid their livestock a Happy New Year to bring about good health and well-being.

Bolivia: Get your dental plan in order, because coins are baked into sweets in Bolivia — if you find one, you’ll be prosperous in the new year. Leaving three stones outside your door will bring health, prosperity and love. Or, you can be more discreet in your intentions: Wearing yellow undies will supposedly bring money, while red undies will bring love.

Brazil: You’ll be bidding 2017 goodbye come hell or high water. And when that high water comes, you can celebrate according to tradition on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach. Jumping through seven waves will bring good luck and if you’re wearing white while doing it, it’ll also bring peace. Get extra credit by throwing a bouquet into the ocean as an offering to the goddess of the seas.

China: Festivities honouring the Gregorian New Year happen in big cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai, but the Chinese Lunar New Year — or Spring Festival — happens in late January or early February. To set the stage, many people literally wash away bad luck with a cleaning spree. They also buy gifts for loved ones, give kids money in red paper envelopes and paint their front doors red to bring happiness and good luck.

Denmark: Friends don’t let friends keep chipped dishes. Instead, friends let friends throw them around willy nilly. People hang on to their chipped dishes and glasses all year just to smash them against their buddies’ front doors on New Year’s Eve. Those with the most shards come morning can brag about having the most friends.

Ecuador: Ecuadoreans are not messing around. Using newspaper and wood, they build life-size effigies of their enemies and burn them in the streets at midnight. To be fair, though, the dummies represent all the misfortunes of the past year — not just their nemeses’ rank vileness.

Germans celebrate the new year with pig-shaped marzipan treats. [Getty Images]

England: Luck may be a lady tonight but on New Year’s Day, it takes the form of a boy. Brits believe that the first guest to walk through your front door should be a lad who’s tall and dark-haired, and he should bring bread (to make sure you’re well fed), salt (to herald wealth) and coal (to keep you warm).

Estonia: Loosen your belt buckle, because things are about to get gluttonous. Traditionally, Estonians eat multiple meals on New Year’s Eve — seven, nine or 12 meals are believed to be the luckiest, and you’ll gain the strength of that many men in the coming year. Let not your gut be daunted, though. You can leave some food on the plate for ancestral spirits.

Finland: Your fortune for the next 365 days is told via molybdomancy — the act of melting tin and quickly throwing it into a bucket of cold water. An expert analyzes the resulting blob of metal.

France: A special nighttime feast called Le Réveillon de la Saint-Sylvestre is loaded with traditional dishes like pancakes, foie gras and Champagne. The meal is thought to bring prosperity and good luck.

Germany: Now here’s a tradition Homer Simpson would approve of. On New Year’s Eve, Germans kick back with jam-filled doughnuts and marzipan goodies shaped like pigs. They also flip on the TV to watch the British cabaret play Dinner for One, which is broadcast in black and white each year.

Greece: Hang an onion on your door on New Year’s Eve as a sign of rebirth. In the morning, parents tap their kids on the head with it to wake them up. Greeks also smash a pomegranate on their doorsteps before setting foot in their homes — the more seeds you see, the more luck and prosperity you’ll have.

Ireland: Are you a single lady? Would you like someone to put a ring on it? According to tradition, you’ll land a mate if you pop some mistletoe under your pillow the night of Dec. 31.

Japan: People literally ring in the new year, as the bells in Buddhist temples chime 108 times on New Year’s Eve (known as Omisoka). In Buddhism, there are 108 human desires that lead to suffering — the bells are believed to banish negative emotions and thoughts.

Peru: Which spud’s for you? On New Year’s Eve, three potatoes are stowed under a chair or couch — one unpeeled, one peeled and one half-peeled. Without looking, you pick a potato at midnight to tell your financial fortune: The peeled potato means money will be scarce, the half-peeled potato indicates a typical year, and the unpeeled potato means you’ll be able to afford much more than three potatoes next year.

Puerto Rico: People scrub down their homes, cars and streets in preparation for Jan. 1. Some also toss buckets of water from a window, which chases away evil spirits and demons (and, presumably, anyone who happens to be walking below).

Romania: Some people foretell the weather for the upcoming year by methodically peeling, salting and reading the skins of 12 onions — the liquid left by melted salt is the key determiner.

Men dressed as Vikings take part in the torchlight procession through Edinburgh for the start of the Hogmanay celebrations [Getty Images]

Russia: The fictional character Ded Moroz (translated as Grandfather Frost) brings presents to children on New Year’s Eve. He’s accompanied by Snegurochka (Snow Maiden), his granddaughter and helper.

Scotland: The three-day celebration Hogmanay starts on Dec. 30, and finds torch-wielding revellers, pipers and drummers marching through Edinburgh. The next two nights bring gatherings called cèilidhean, filled with singing, traditional dancing and storytelling.

Spain: Each time the clock strikes at midnight, people eat one grape — an exercise that’s thought to bring prosperity.

Switzerland: Unlike the Puerto Ricans and Chinese with their neatnik traditions, the Swiss take a more laissez-faire approach. They drop a dollop of whipped cream on the floor to bring abundance. The longer it lingers there, the better.

Vietnam: New year, new clothes. People don a traditional outfit called ao dai to to celebrate Tet, the Lunar New Year, in late January or early February, signifying a fresh start. Three days (or more) of festivities call for eating, drinking, socializing and paying respect to ancestors and elders.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/25-ways-to-celebrate-new-years-eve-around-the-world/feed0Copacabana beach, Brazilmhank2012Chinese folk artists perform during the Spring Festival Temple FairGermans celebrate the new year with pig-shaped marzipan treats. In Russia, Grandfather Frost and Snow Maiden bring presents on New Year’s Eve.Men dressed as Vikings take part in the torchlight procession through Edinburgh for the start of the Hogmanay celebrationsPop Forecast for Dec. 25: All the Money in the World, Doctor Who and morehttp://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-dec-25-all-the-money-in-the-world-doctor-who-and-more
http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-dec-25-all-the-money-in-the-world-doctor-who-and-more#respondMon, 25 Dec 2017 07:17:58 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766258Chris Lackner

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

• MOVIES

Big Release on Dec. 25: All the Money in the World

Big Picture: Kevin, who? Space — or “Spacey” — in this film was created for Canadian screen legend Christopher Plummer. In a rapidly scheduled reshoot, Plummer took over the role of an oil tycoon and patriarch under intense pressure to bow to the ransom of his grandson. Based on the true story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III, the cast is rounded out by Michelle Williams as the boy’s mother and Mark Wahlberg as Getty’s advisor. It’s a classic battle of love versus money. If this were a real Christmas movie, we would know who wins.

Forecast: Director Ridley Scott delivers a masterpiece at 80; Christopher Plumber delivers the goods at 88. I predict a new trend: Next up, Hollywood will call on Plummer to reshoot the movie roles of lousy actors, too — starting with every scene ever shot in a movie starring Vin Diesel, Adam Sandler and Ashton Kutcher. (I’d pay good money to see Plummer Fast & Furious, or playing a washed-up ’80s Wedding Singer.)

Big Picture: Doctor Who’s annual Christmas special delivers again! Why talk to your family on Christmas Day when you can watch a time-travelling alien wander the cosmos — inexplicably always speaking in a British accent no matter how many times he is reincarnated. Meanwhile, celebrate the return of Black Mirror, Netflix’s superb technology-focused anthology series — in the spirit of the Twilight Zone. Six new episodes stream today, including ones directed by David Slade and Jodie Foster. The new season includes a feature-length Star Trek spoof starring Jesse Plemons and Cristin Milioti.

Forecast: Small-screen New Year’s Eve festivities involve a repeat of last year’s rock-and-a-hard-place decision: Ryan Seacrest on NBC or Steve Harvey on Fox. (My host of choice will be Jack Daniels on ice.)

Big Picture: No new releases, so let’s take a moment to forecast tomorrow’s potential classic. The Bowie-Crosby pairing is still the best of all time — but it makes me wonder why we can’t have more famous duets on classic carols. Hello, recording industry! You’re dying anyway! This is your chance. My suggestions include: The White Stripes reuniting for a duet of Jingle Bell Rock; Vanilla Ice and Snow (a hip-hoppity take on Frosty the Snowman); Taylor Swift, John Mayer, Harry Styles (Baby it’s Cold Outside — Chilly, Actually); Lady Gaga and Bono (Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree); Miley Cyrus and Keith Richards (a drunken, irreverent Joy to the World); Beyoncé and Jay-Z (a new take on 12 Days of Christmas — with all the fancy things Jay-Z is buying this year to make up for his misdeeds).

Forecast: Our finest gifts we bring, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum. You and yours will have a happy holidays time.

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-dec-25-all-the-money-in-the-world-doctor-who-and-more/feed0Christopher Plummerpostmedianews1Black Mirror includes a Star Trek spoof.David Bowie, left, and Bing Crosby7 tips for self-care during the holidayshttp://o.canada.com/life/7-tips-for-self-care-during-the-holidays
http://o.canada.com/life/7-tips-for-self-care-during-the-holidays#respondWed, 20 Dec 2017 18:26:34 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766245It might not officially be Treat Yo Self day — that Parks and Recreation-inspired celebration that demands you revel in massages, mimosas, fine leather goods and more — but the rigmarole of the holiday season practically demands it.

“We’re super-heightened at this time of year, so schedule some self-care time like an appointment,” says Hamilton-based naturopath Renata Taravski. “We don’t treat ourselves with the same value as say, a dentist appointment. But when you make a plan, it’s going to set you up for success.”

Taravski shared seven more tips for self-care during the holidays.

1. Know your limits

There’s only one way to avoid hosting a dinner, hunting down the perfect gift and manning the bake sale all in one day: Just say no. “It’s about setting boundaries,” says Taravski. “People tend to commit to things resentfully, thinking that they have to do them or else they feel guilty. But it’s really about knowing what your limit is and not feeling bad about it, and not trying to explain it.”

2. Plot your meal domination

Rather than being more restrictive than a pair of size-small Spanx, allow yourself some wiggle room for delicious treats. “Give yourself a couple of days where you’re like, ‘I’m going to indulge in what I want to indulge in, in moderation,” says Taravski, adding that one blissful meal won’t add 10 pounds overnight.

“It’s the accumulation of the whole month of throwing everything out the window that we worked so hard for during the year. So plan your cheat days, your fun days, your indulgent days. Then you know you’re saving yourself for that favourite meal and you’re not going to feel an ounce of guilt about it.”

3. A moving experience

Lolling around like Jabba the Hutt may seem like an ideal way to spend an afternoon, but then again, ol’ Jabba wasn’t exactly the paragon of health. Just incorporating a modicum of movement can offset food indulgences and keep you on track. “Even walking more or spending Christmas outside, or going bowling is exercise,” says Taravski. “Try to commit to meeting your friends or planning your holiday events around activities so you’re keeping active and you don’t feel like you’re working out. Make it fun. Go for a walk on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day. Don’t sit there and stuff your face.”

[Getty Images/iStockphoto]

4. The big sleep

A well-rested guest is a guest who’s less likely to lash out with a shish kebab skewer. Fill your evening routine with good habits, like banishing your cellphone to a faraway corner. The scent of lavender also helps — try dabbing your pillow with it, or adding some to a diffuser — and give yourself a good hour to wind down.

“We’re going to be sitting with people or have conversations that might be dreadful for us, and we’re less patient and loving if we’re not getting enough sleep,” Taravski says. “You might stay out late for a couple of days, but commit to your sleep schedule. If you have an event, know that you don’t have to stay to the very end.”

5. To tech or not to tech?

It’s tempting to think that if something’s not documented on social media, it never really happened. But a respite from virtual reality might be just what you need to enjoy actual reality.

“When I’m at a family event, I’ll take out my phone and take my picture — but then I put my phone away. I don’t have to be texting people at the dinner table. It’s really cherishing being with the people you’re with and giving yourself that mental break,” says Taravski.

6. Meditate on this

You don’t have to be a master yogi to gain the benefits of meditation — even a few minutes can help when you feel like you’re burning the pumpkin spice-scented candle at both ends.

“Meditation calms our nervous system down and gets us more calm and clear. We’re less likely to explode or react a certain way or feel the effects of stress,” says Taravski.

She recommends the free app Insight Timer, which is available for Android and iPhones, and has ambient sounds, visualizations, lectures and guided imagery meditations in just about any length you need.

7. Curb your enthusiasm

With all due respect to Andy Williams, maybe this isn’t really the most wonderful time of the year. Maybe, for some, it’s the holiday equivalent of stepping barefooted on a piece of Lego. It might be the anniversary of the death of a loved one, your financial situation might be particularly dire, or the holidays might not have turned out the way you hoped.

“Just because it’s Christmas it doesn’t mean that it’s all bunnies and rainbows the whole month. Let go of your expectations and accept whatever shows up in the moment. That’s not just for people who experience depression — that’s for all of us,” says Taravski.

“Reach out to people around you and share your vulnerability. At the end of the day, as humans, we all want connection. And the holidays are the perfect time reignite it.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/7-tips-for-self-care-during-the-holidays/feed0Yoga meditationmhank2012Self-careA festive mixtape of songs for the holidayshttp://o.canada.com/entertainment/music/a-festive-mixtape-of-songs-for-the-holidays
http://o.canada.com/entertainment/music/a-festive-mixtape-of-songs-for-the-holidays#respondTue, 19 Dec 2017 17:14:51 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766233Making a mixtape is a tricky task. It’s a subtle art of musical ebb and flow and — depending on the theme — can also cover a spectrum of emotions. With Christmas approaching, Postmedia’s Jim Reyno creates his holiday mixtape.

Christmas in Hollis (Run DMC, 1987): Let’s kick things off with a modern-era Christmas song that’s become a holiday and hip-hop classic. Comical and endearingly sentimental at the same time, Christmastime in Hollis, Queens, sounds like the place to be.

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (The Crystals, 1963): From producer Phil Spector’s masterpiece album A Christmas Gift for You. Spector’s famous group of studio musicians, the Wrecking Crew, build his trademark Wall of Sound on this thunderous, infectious record. And check out the percussion break at 2:08 — what fun!

That’s two upbeat tunes in a row: Let’s change the pace.

Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy (Bing Crosby and David Bowie, 1977): Maybe the oddball pairing of all time, but this collaboration keeps getting passed to the next generation. Traditional crooner Crosby sings Drummer Boy, while rocker Bowie — a controversial figure at the time — counterpoints with a new composition, Peace on Earth. Beautiful.

Run, Rudolph, Run (Chuck Berry, 1958): Like most Christmas songs, this has been covered many times. But Berry’s slightly sloppy, old-school rock ‘n’ roll version resonates best. And I like the contrast with the pop professionalism of the previous track.

Santa Baby (Madonna, 1987): I hate this song. Madonna’s childish vocal is as unsexy as it is irritating. I just put it on here in case there’s a Grinch at your party and you want him to leave. But if you don’t want to clear the room, I guess we’d better have a version of White Christmas instead. I’d rather not feature another performance by Crosby … but, wow, his 1942 version is the best-selling single of all time. You don’t get more essential than that: People are going to expect it.

So let’s drop Madonna; bring more Bing. And don’t sweat the Grinch — he’ll get into the Christmas spirit eventually. Show him some love … and give him first crack at the next round of hors d’oeuvres.

That’s it for the first half or — if you’re a dinosaur like me — Side A.

The 12 Days of Christmas (Bob and Doug McKenzie, 1981): Repetitive Christmas clunker gets much needed humourous twist from Canada’s favourite hosers, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. You had me at beer on the first day of Christmas.

Run DMC: Jam Master Jay, left, DJ Run and DMC. [Arista Records]

Blue Christmas (Elvis Presley, 1957): The King delivers the definitive version with swagger, a slight snarl and hip shake. And those unforgettable vocals in the background? That’s courtesy of the Jordanaires.

OK, time to start winding it down.

Do They Know It’s Christmas? (Band Aid, 1984): One of the first all-star musical charity collaborations, maybe still the best one (my favourite, anyway). A gentle song sung in true collaboration, as opposed to individual divas and divos taking turns screaming into a microphone.

Silent Night: This was a struggle. I listened to many versions of this Christmas standard: lots of lovely ones, a few not-so-lovely ones. I’m still not sure, but I’m on deadline. Let’s go with Pentatonix’s 2014 version for a bit of solemn a cappella heaven.

The Christmas Song (Nat King Cole, 1961): Cole’s fourth recording of this singalong classic, his warm and easy vocal is the musical equivalent of cold-night cuddles in front of the fireplace. And you already know there are chestnuts roasting on that open fire. Sure this version is a bit sweet, but if we can’t indulge in syrupy string arrangements at Christmastime, when can we? We’ll work it off in the new year.

For some Canadians, 2017 is the year that ended a three-decade wait. In 1989, Michelle Douglas was dismissed from the Canadian Forces, deemed “not advantageously employable due to homosexuality.” She sued for discrimination and won. Despite her victory that let the gay community serve openly in the military, Canada’s government never said it was sorry.

That changed in November, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized for historic discrimination against LGBTQ2 Canadian service members. It wasn’t just personal vindication for Douglas, but an inspiration.

“I feel even more committed now to join with fellow Canadians to create positive change in our world on other issues like the environment,” she says.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a formal apology to individuals harmed by federal practices that led to discrimination against LGBTQ2 people. []

At home in Canada, small but significant gestures show non-Indigenous Canadians are taking personal responsibility for reconciliation. In September, the Kahkewistahaw First Nation in Saskatchewan welcomed a public school’s football team from the town of Southey to their community school. Before the game, the Southey’s coach Kahkewistahaw coach Evan Taypotat with a traditional gift of tobacco — one of the four medicines sacred to First Nations.

Many of our country’s schools now start every day by acknowledging the Indigenous territory they stand on.

In the world of science, there were breakthroughs for cancer patients in Africa and babies born with opioid addiction.

In the world at large, Antonio Guterres took office as Secretary-General of the United Nations in January. One of his first acts was to appoint women to three of the UN’s top jobs, including deputy secretary-general, setting a global example for gender parity in leadership.

“It is this action, more than rhetoric, that moved us closer to gender equity,” says Kate White, president of the UN Association in Canada.

“It is this action, more than rhetoric, that moved us closer to gender equity,” says Kate White.

All year long, we were moved by the dedication of youth and their conviction for social justice.

Simryn and Jasmyn Singh, 15 and 11, teamed up with Got Bannock, an Indigenous community organization, to serve traditional Sikh and Indigenous food to Winnipeg’s homeless. In one act, they combined community service with the kind of intercultural exchange that has made Canada a beacon of diversity.

Looking back on 2017, you can call it a dumpster fire, or you can witness a thousand small flames igniting hope and inspiration. If you choose the latter, it becomes much easier to light your own spark for change in the year to come.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of theWE movement,which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

Back in the day, when TV viewers fancied a little onscreen indulgence — maybe even with a scandalous scene or two — their sole choice was to partake at home, with only the dog around to lay judgment. But now, as streaming services and apps have taken viewing mobile, there’s always the risk of a stranger sneaking a peak at your screen.

According to a new survey from Netflix, 67 per cent of people around the world stream programming outside their homes, and 45 per cent of Canadians have caught a secret binger eyeballing their screens — with 20 per cent of us embarrassed about we’re watching.

The technical term for this, because nowadays there’s a technical term for everything, is “show shame.” Maybe you feel show shame over the steamy scenes in Orange is the New Black, or the violence on Suburra: Blood on Rome, or the delicious cheesiness oozing every which way on Fuller House.

Canadians deal with show shame in various ways, according to the survey, which took in more than 37,000 responses worldwide over two weeks this summer. Thirty-four per cent of bingers check to see if anyone else noticed the onscreen shenanigans; 32 per cent pretend like nothing happened; 21 per cent turn off the show or movie; and 17 per cent cover up the screen.

[]

Globally, the survey found that 11 per cent of public bingers have had a show or movie spoiled by seeing someone else’s screen and 27 per cent have had a stranger interrupt them to start a conversation about what they’re watching.

Last year Netflix launched a feature allowing people to download programs to watch when they’re out of Internet range, which likely boosted on-the-go binging. And as the holidays looms, viewers are more apt to get their Netflix on.

The survey found that public streamers ranked access to movies and TV shows as more important while travelling than food and beverages (30 per cent versus 25 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively).

Sixty-three per cent of Canadians are concerned their travels will be delayed by weather, and 36 per cent are concerned with keeping themselves entertained.

And of those who’ve banked on inflight entertainment, 33 per cent say they’ve missed the ending of what they were watching because of the landing.

Surely the pilot could’ve circled the airport once more so we could find out what happens at the end of Little Fockers?

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.

Big picture: Jumanji chooses a Guns N’ Roses song as its subtitle and promises “fun and games” with the casting of Everyman and every-other-movie lead Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson. Because no one plays with board games anymore (except hipsters), this Jumanji sequel finds a bunch of slack-jawed teenagers sucked into the original Jumanji world via a mysterious video game.

Meanwhile, The Greatest Showman is Moulin Rouge meets American Horror Story: Freak Show (as directed by Disney) meets … Wolverine in a top hat. Hugh Jackman plays a visionary showman who creates an international circus sensation, in a tale loosely inspired by the imagination of P.T. Barnum. He also spouts feel good lines “Every one of us is special and no one is like anyone else.”

Finally, Downsizing finds Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig living the short life after scientists discover how to shrink humans to five inches tall as a solution to over-population. Their new world is one where “you can live like kings” with the best houses and restaurants, and where a real-world size vodka bottle can serve as a fountain of endless drunks.

Forecast: The Rock may be single-handedly keeping Hollywood from dystopian ruins at this point. (I predict Downsizing will end with Damon coming face-to-face with Rick Moranis’s character from Honey I Shrunk the Kids, who secretly rules the tiny paradise like Big Brother).

Bright stars Will Smith, left, and Joel Edgerton

TV

Big events: Bright (Dec. 22, Netflix); Gunpowder (HBO, Dec. 18).

Big picture: Just when you thought it was safe to live in a world without Will Smith, he jumps into the world of Netflix original films. Bright is a US$90-million buddy-cop fantasy about an alternate, present-day Earth where fantasy creatures like orcs, elves and fairies live among us. The plot centres around the discovery of a magic wand, described as “a nuclear weapons that grants wishes.” (This is the kind of movie for people who want to watch Will Smith swat and squash a fanged fairy that is abusing his bird feeder.) Did I mention the buddy-cop duo is orc-human?

Meanwhile, Jon Snow crosses time and dimensions to plot the fiery destruction of the British Parliament in 1605. Kit Harington stars in the three-part BBC series following the real-life violent conspiracy to murder King James I during the state opening of Parliament. “For the first time in my life, my heart is full and my purpose is clear,” his character says.

Save it for Westeros, buddy. Liv Tyler co-stars for some reason (when we all know she should be donning elf ears for Bright).

Forecast: Bright would lighten up my life a lot more if Mike Myers was playing Shrek as a live-action cop.

Big picture: With no new releases this week, we look at the best 2017 holiday releases — and some ones to poke fun at. First, one-time boy-boppers Hanson serve up Finally It’s Christmas — the one time of the year that no one asks them to sing MMMbop.

Meanwhile, fellow ghosts of pop-music past, 98º, drop Let It Snow. Hark the herald as veteran rockers Cheap Trick unwrap an album featuring holiday originals and holiday covers of the Ramones and Chuck Berry. In all seriousness, it would be a blue Christmas if I didn’t mention the excellent pairing of classic Elvis holiday performances with new accompaniment from the world-famous orchestra.

Forecast: The ghosts of Christmas future warn me of a one-day washed up Drake releasing a holiday album called Christmas Bling. (Be gone cruel phantoms! Be gone!)

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/pop-forecast-for-dec-18-jumanji-gunpowder-and-more/feed0Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)postmedianews1Bright (2017)Christmas with Elvis and The Royal Philharmonic OrchestraGlobal Voices: Holiday customs abound even in outer spacehttp://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-holiday-customs-abound-even-in-outer-space
http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-holiday-customs-abound-even-in-outer-space#respondTue, 12 Dec 2017 07:26:33 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766172’Twas the night before Christmas

In the deep space abyss

Not a creature was stirring

Except Commander Chris

* * *

You may not believe in the jolly man who flies around to hand out presents, but on Christmas Eve in 2012, we guarantee he was there, 400 kilometers above Earth, rocketing around the planet at 7.6 kilometers per second.

Chris Hadfield floated weightlessly through the International Space Station, playing Santa Claus, his crew fast asleep. Before the launch, he’d asked the crew’s families to write cards for their loved ones. Then there he was, hiding those messages for the other five astronauts to find on Christmas morning.

“Except, it wasn’t really Christmas morning, because when is morning (in space)?” Hadfield explains the complications of marking holidays while orbiting Earth every 92 minutes, seeing 16 sunrises each day.

We’ve celebrated the holidays with family in the Amazon and the Maasai Mara, pausing long enough to exchange gifts and catch up before returning to the build site, helping erect a school or dig a well. We know how important traditions are — even for those whose schedules demand unconventional Christmases. Seeking some perspective, we turned to Cmdr. Hadfield, who talked to us about turkey, trees, dessert and the crucial task of bringing Earth-bound traditions to outer space.

On the ground, tables are laden with sugar cookies and cakes. In the microgravity of the space station, crumbs pose a serious threat, and can clog ventilation filters. The solution was a dense — but divisive — treat. Hadfield’s crew enjoyed a traditional fruitcake on Christmas day.

“Strangely enough, it was made by Trappist Monks in the Ozarks (in the U.S.),” recalls Hadfield. “It kept beautifully, it’s not crumbly, so we just velcroed the package to the table and everyone could grab a little bit on the way by.”

In space, just like on Earth, this time of year is a chance to reset, and focus on our wellbeing and relationships

Compared to cutting-edge experiments and space walks, ensuring that holiday desserts can withstand space travel may seem frivolous. But in space, just like on Earth, this time of year is a chance to reset, and focus on our well-being and relationships. Fruitcake, stockings and tinsel are more powerful symbols to help mark this reflection than we realize — until we know that even astronauts turn to them in the cold recesses of space.

“For birthdays, for holidays, for deaths in the family, I treated it (all) very seriously because psychological health is fundamental to everything else being successful,” says Hadfield.

There was the special meal request: ready-to-eat turkey, reconstituted potatoes and processed vegetables. There was the two-foot-tall (61-cm) artificial Christmas tree, velcroed to a wall. There were personalized Christmas stockings stuffed full of chocolate and nuts.

Preparation for all holidays was vital to the mission. Hadfield’s American and Russian crew picked holidays from their respective cultures to celebrate, planning creative ways to make them both special and familiar.

Now home with his family, Hadfield is sharing that outlook with others, bringing that cross-cultural perspective to his forthcoming science-based variety show, Generator, premiering in Toronto in January.

Hadfield’s holiday in outer space offers a new perspective for terrestrial-bound merrymakers. Even floating through space, customs ground us.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of the WE movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/global-voices-holiday-customs-abound-even-in-outer-space/feed0Chris Hadfield and the crew of the International Space StationcraigkielburgerNetflix reveals top shows for Canadians in 2017http://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/netflix-reveals-top-shows-for-canadians-in-2017
http://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/netflix-reveals-top-shows-for-canadians-in-2017#respondMon, 11 Dec 2017 14:00:12 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=766157I scream, you scream, we all scream for small screens! Need proof? In 2017, Netflix users around the world watched more than 140 million hours of content from the streaming service per day.

The company released a report Monday detailing Canadians’ viewing habits over the past year — what we binged, what we savoured, what we watched as families, and what shows we cheated on our partners with.

Canadian Netflixers are viewers par excellence: We rank second in the world for having the most members binging every day (Mexico is No. 1). The report also found that Jan. 1 was the most popular streaming day, and one hardcore viewer watched The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 361 times. Some other findings drawn from the period between Nov. 1, 2016, and Nov. 1, 2017:

SHOWS WE DEVOURED

Full-out binging, Canadians watched more than two hours per day of dramas like megachurch saga Greenleaf and Italian crime series Suburra: Blood on Rome.

1. Greenleaf

2. American Vandal

3. Suburra: Blood on Rome

4. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

5. Ingobernable

6. The Keepers

7. The OA

8. The Confession Tapes

9. Cable Girls

10. The Mist

Claire Foy in The Crown [Netflix]

SHOWS WE SAVOURED

Some things are better enjoyed at a slower pace — Netflix defines “savouring” as watching less than two hours per day. Visual feast The Crown placed No. 1, outranking lighter fare like Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later and Big Mouth.

1. The Crown

2. Neo Yokio

3. Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later

4. Ozark

5. A Series of Unfortunate Events

6. Glow

7. Friends from College

8. El Chapo

9. Atypical

10. Big Mouth

SHOWS THAT MADE US NETFLIX-CHEAT

We shamelessly watched buzzy series like Stranger Things and 13 Reasons Why ahead of our significant others. The crime dramas Narcos and Ozark also proved too good to wait for.

1. Orange is the New Black

2. Stranger Things

3. Narcos

4. Ozark

5. Riverdale

6. 13 Reasons Why

7. Marvel’s The Defenders

8. Grace and Frankie

9. The Crown

10. Black Mirror

Fuller House [Netflix]

MOST VIEWED AS A FAMILY

Shows with kids and teens at the fore proved popular as family viewing — Riverdale and 13 Reasons Why among them. Nostalgia, like the 1980s-set Stranger Things and rebooted sitcom Fuller House, also brought us together.

1. Stranger Things

2. Riverdale

3. 13 Reasons Why

4. Fuller House

5. A Series of Unfortunate Events

6. Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life

7. Chef’s Table

8. Atypical

9. Trollhunters

10. Ultimate Beastmaster

]]>http://o.canada.com/entertainment/television/netflix-reveals-top-shows-for-canadians-in-2017/feed0Stranger Thingsmhank2012Claire Foy in The CrownFuller House